For most of April, while Mars is behind the Sun as seen from Earth, no commands are being sent to MSL. Before the start of the solar conjunction stand-down, the rover was programmed to acquire radiation and weather data every day. The Sun interferes with radio waves that pass close to it, but we have received a bit of data anyway, enough to know that the rover is healthy and running the command sequences as planned.
Written by Ken Herkenhoff, Planetary Geologist at USGS Astrogeology Science Center
