3 ms·
I'm a bit surprised the Rover talks directly to Earth for the high speed data transfer. I would have expected a large dish in Martian orbit being used to relay
by jandrese 6y ago
I'm a bit surprised the Rover talks directly to Earth for the high speed data transfer. I would have expected a large dish in Martian orbit being used to relay the signal down to the rover's relatively tiny high gain antenna. Even when you account for the fact that the satellite will only be overhead part of the time the link budget calculation would be enormously different.
- lights0123 6y agoThey do, from the link in the comment you replied to: > Most often, Mars 2020 uses its ultra-high frequency (UHF) antenna (about 400 megahertz) to communicate with Earth through NASA's orbiters around Mars. Because the rover and orbiter antennas are within close range of each other, they act a little like walky-talkies compared to the long-range telecommunications with Earth provided by the low-gain and high-gain antennas.