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Further if you're not looking for realtime direction finding and you're willing to wait a few minutes for a fix, you can get away with far fewer satellites. Pu
by msandford 11y ago
Further if you're not looking for realtime direction finding and you're willing to wait a few minutes for a fix, you can get away with far fewer satellites.
Putting 6 small satellites in orbit and getting position fixes every hour would still be way better than nothing.
- scott_karana 11y agoHow would the satellites themselves maintain their proper positions relative to Mars, without ground stations to orient against?
- jessaustin 11y agoWe already stipulated that we're landing something on the surface. That could include a stationary transmitter, which satellites could use to periodically update their location and velocity.
- scott_karana 11y agoYeah, agreed, my comment was meant to politely point out the necessity to the people thinking we could get away with "dropping a few satellites" ;)
- afarrell 11y agoAll of these things can be done remotely without any wetware on Mars.
- scott_karana 11y ago"How?"
- JoeAltmaier 11y agoLike we do everything on and around Mars now.
- Sanddancer 11y agoNeutron stars -- http://www.nasa.gov/topics/universe/features/zombie-stars-sidebar.html http://www.nasa.gov/topics/universe/features/zombie-stars-si...