solar conjunction – Behind The Black

Communications resume with Mars

January 21, 2026 1:02 pm Robert Zimmerman

First images back from Curiosity and Perseverance
Go here and here for the original images.

It appears the solar conjunction that has blocked all communications with the rovers and orbiters for the past three weeks around Mars has now fully ended, with the first new images appearing today from both Curiosity and Perseverance.

The two images to the right were downloaded today. The top image was taken on January 20, 2026 by Curiosity’s front hazard avoidance camera. It appears to be looking uphill in the direction the rover is soon to travel, climbing Mount Sharp. If you look closely you can see the mountain’s higher ranges on the horizon, just to the right of the rover itself.

The bottom picture was actually taken on January 15, 2026 by Perseverance, but was only downloaded today. Both science teams had programmed their rovers to take images throughout the conjunction, scheduled for download when communications resumed.

The picture was taken by Perseverance’s left high resolution camera located on top of the rover’s mast. It looks down at the ground near the rover at the pebbles and rocks that strewn the relatively smooth surface of the terrain west of Jezero crater.

Neither image is particularly ground-breaking. What is important however is that both images prove the rovers are functioning as expected. Expect a lot more data to arrive in the next few days, all gathered during three weeks of blackout.

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The three week communications blackout from Mars has begun

January 1, 2026 11:30 am Robert Zimmerman

Click for original.

The two images to the right, both downloaded today (here and here) from the Mars rovers Curiosity (top) and Perseverance, illustrate quite clearly the beginning of the three-week-long communications blackout from Mars caused every two years when the orbits of Earth and Mars places the Sun in-between. As the Curiosity science team noted in a December 22, 2025 update:

This holiday season coincides with conjunction — every two years, because of their different orbits, Earth and Mars are obstructed from one another by the Sun; this one will last from Dec. 27 to Jan. 20. We do not like to send commands through the Sun in case they get scrambled, so we have been finishing up a few last scientific observations before preparing Curiosity for its quiet conjunction break.

Apparently engineers were able to squeeze data and images from Mars for a few extra days, but the incomplete nature of these two pictures — combined with the lack of any other new images today — tells us that the blackout has definitely begun. That they were able to get these additional images after conjunction began suggests the blackout might also end a bit earlier than expected.

Though there is always a concern that something could go wrong while communications are blocked, the risks are small. The science teams for all the Mars orbiters and rovers have dealt with this situation now almost a dozen times since operations became routine there more than a quarter century ago.

The only spacecraft at real risk this conjunction is Maven. Contact was lost from it in early December for unknown reasons, and all efforts to regain communications have so far failed. All engineers know from the little data they have gotten back is it appears to be tumbling. This three week blackout will make any chance of recovery extremely unlikely.

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Communications resume with Mars orbiters and rovers

November 30, 2023 9:06 am Robert Zimmerman

It now appears that communications have resumed between Mars and the Earth, the planets having moved do that the Sun is no longer in between. From an update by the Curiosity science team today:

Mars has just emerged from its solar conjunction period, when sending commands to all Mars spacecraft was not safe for three weeks since the Red Planet was behind the Sun as seen from Earth. During that time, Curiosity followed a long plan of instructions covering Sols 4004-4022 which were uploaded to the rover during the week of October 30. The early word on is that the rover weathered the long blackout period just fine.

During the black-out the rovers had continued to upload data to the orbiters above, and some of that data was relayed back to Earth this past weekend, though the relay was “spotty” with some data packages lost.

Communications have now cleared up, and so we should expect both Curiosity and Perseverance to resume full operations again.