News for hackers. Stuff that matters.

A comment on Perseverance Rover lands on Mars [video]. Parent comment

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.

[ Parent | on HN ]
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...
[ Parent | on HN ]
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 ?).
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Perseverance Rover lands on Mars [video] by Sharlin on Thursday February 18, 2021 @05:38PM (#26186772)
Not only the MRO, but other orbiting assets as well, particularly NASA's MAVEN and ESA's TGO. Even the venerable 2001 Mars Odyssey is still used as needed, I think.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Perseverance Rover lands on Mars [video] by m4rtink on Thursday February 18, 2021 @08:48PM (#26188516)
Even ESAs Mars Express is still around - since 2003!
[ Parent | on HN ]