According to a NASA announcement on Twitter, on October 19, the Mars probe Perseverance re-established contact with Earth and continued its historic mission on the red planet.
On October 21, the China National Space Administration (CNSA) said that the Tianwen-1 spacecraft and the Zhu Rong robot have also started working again after nearly a month of interruptions in contact with Earth, according to the report. Global Times.
Late last month, Mars entered a “sun conjunction” position in its orbit. This event occurs every two years, forcing NASA to suspend the operation of most of the Mars rover for safety reasons.
Similarly, China’s ground control team quickly halted the red planet exploration mission and ran a series of algorithms to prevent dangerous situations. A “Sun conjunction” occurs when Mars and Earth move to either side of the Sun and all three bodies are roughly in a straight line.
This event caused communication between the probe and the rover on Mars and Earth to be heavily affected by solar radiation, disrupting many other European, Chinese and Indian missions on the planet. red planet.
“When carrying out missions to explore celestial bodies in the solar system, especially Mars and other planets in the inner ring, signal loss due to influence from the Sun is a common phenomenon,” the Times said. Global Times quoted Jiao Weixin, a professor of space science at Peking University, as explaining.
The robot Chuc Dung, Perseverance, Curiosity, the Ingenuity helicopter, and the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, MAVEN, Odyssey and InSight probes have continuously performed many other tasks during the time of loss of contact with Earth.
Specifically, the Perseverance and Curiosity probes conducted weather measurements, measured radiation, and used cameras and microphones to monitor sandstorms. The Ingenuity helicopter parked 175 meters away continuously updates the status of the robot on a weekly basis. InSight uses seismometers to detect earthquakes, and all three remaining NASA orbiters continue to transmit all relevant data back to Earth.
After the “Solar Conjunction” event ended, all the Mars robots immediately went to work, continuing their historic mission on the red planet and actively transmitting data back to Earth.
