Mars Investigation Rover Mission Standing Report

The team controlling NASA's Mars rover Opportunity will provisionally suspend imposing for 16 days after the rover's seventh anniversary next week, but the rover will stay busy.

For the fourth time since chance landed on Mars on Jan. 25, 2004, Universal Time (Jan. 24, Pacific Time), the planets' orbits will put Mars almost directly behind the sun from Earth's perspective.

During the days surrounding such an alignment, called an astrophysical conjunction, the sun can disturb radio transmissions between Earth and Mars. To evade the chance of a command being corrupted by the sun and harming a spacecraft, NASA momentarily refrains from sending commands from Earth to Mars spacecraft in orbit and on the surface. This year, the commanding cessation will be Jan. 27 to Feb. 11 for Opportunity, with similar periods for the Mars inspection Orbiter and Mars Odyssey orbiter.