Mars's Curiosity rover, as well as the Opportunity, Odyssey, and Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter are all taking a small break. This is due to an alignment of the orbits of Earth and Mars that only occurs once every 26 months, a phenomenon that makes communication between the two planets very difficult.
It's called the "Mars solar conjunction," and will result in Mars passing almost directly behind the solar disk. Because of the difficulty in maintaining a reliable connection, NASA has called a hiatus on sending commands to its off-planet robotic units. Transmissions to the Curiosity rover aren't set to recommence until May 1.
The transmission issues are due to the fact that sun's lower atmosphere contains many highly charged particles. With that region now in between Earth and Mars, all radio communication will have to pass through a lot of interference. Sent commands in particular are prone to data corruption, which could be a serious issue for obvious reasons.
Because of this, NASA has decided to play it safe, and let Curiosity take a couple of months off. Additionally, the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter will be switched into a "record only" mode.
"For the entire conjunction period, we'll just be storing data on board [the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter]," said Reid Thomas, the MRO Deputy Mission Manager.
While NASA won't be sending any new commands to Curiosity, the rover will actually still be transmitting data to the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, which will be downloaded to Earth around May 1. Additionally, Curiosity will also be sending regular "beeps" to NASA as a signal that everything is still OK.
"We will maintain visibility of rover status two ways," said Torsten Zorn, conjunction planning leader for Curiosity's JPL engineering operations team. "First, Curiosity will be sending daily beeps directly to Earth. Our second line of visibility is in the Odyssey relays."
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