In June, no information regarding Mars will be returned for 14 days as spacecraft on the planet will have no contact with Earth during this period.

This will start happening since it appears that Mars is moving behind the sun, when observed from Earth. This is an alignment, which is called a Mars solar conjunction. It happens nearly once every 26 months as the two planets move in their relative orbits.

At present, The Maven, Odyssey, and Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) spacecraft are orbiting above Mars and NASA also has a pair of spacecrafts on the surface - Curiosity and Opportunity. The space agency will not be able to contact these five vehicles, during this two-week period.

Mission planners on Earth will avoid sending signals to spacecraft on and around Mars from June 7-21. This is because the position of the sun between the two planets could lead to difficulty for the signals or even block them completely.

Rovers on the ground will be directed to sit idle, and robotic arms will also not work during this time. Some of the spacecraft will still carry out scientific experiments, in the face of these limitations. Earlier also, some mission planners on other programs have seen such blackouts.

According to Nagin Cox from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, head of conjunction planning for the Curiosity rover, "Our overall approach is based on what we did for the solar conjunction two years ago, which worked well. It is really helpful to have been through this before".