Re:Perseverance Rover lands on Mars [video]
by _Microft on Thursday February 18, 2021 @04:36PM
(#26185987)
Starlink would most certainly be of little direct use here.
What I could imagine is having Starlink satellites around Mars that allow to route data from rovers anywhere on the planet to a dedicated high-performance communications platform that handles communication with Earth.
Re:Perseverance Rover lands on Mars [video]
by teraflop on Thursday February 18, 2021 @04:43PM
(#26186072)
In fact that's exactly what they're doing: the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter is serving as a communications relay, as it did for previous landers.
It's just that since there have never been more than a handful of spacecraft active on Mars at any given time, there's currently no point in spending huge amounts of money to launch a whole constellation of satellites for continuous coverage.
Re:Perseverance Rover lands on Mars [video]
by davidmr on Thursday February 18, 2021 @05:45PM
(#26186870)
And a photographer! MRO took what might be my very favorite picture of all time: https://www.space.com/16946-mars-rover-landing-seen-from-spa...
Re:Perseverance Rover lands on Mars [video]
by m4rtink on Thursday February 18, 2021 @05:34PM
(#26186727)
Could be still a nice exercise if someone could compute how many Starlinks could a Falcon Heavy throw to Mars transfer orbit & if they could be able to actually capture into Martian orbit by their default means of propulsion (do they actually have any high thrust engines ?).
Elon Musk needs to provide some Starlink sats for a better connection.