NASA's missions lie low when sun is between Earth and Mars

This handout from the US space agency Nasa shows the US rover "Perseverance" (right) next to the mini-helicopter "Ingenuity" on Mars. The picture was taken by the NASA rover. Photo: dpa/NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS

Nasa will stand down from commanding its Mars missions until mid-October while Earth and Mars are on opposite sides of the sun, the US space agency said last Tuesday.

Nasa said while engineers would stop sending commands, the missions would continue collecting data about Mars during the period, called Mars solar conjunction, which happens every two years.