Meet the orbiters that help rovers on Mars talk to Earth

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A fleet of orbiters orbiting the planet acts as dual-purpose workhorses, redistributing data and images from the surface missions to Earth while exploring various aspects of the planet.

Their mapping capabilities have allowed NASA mission teams to select landing sites of interest, and their cameras and instruments can monitor surface missions and even warn of global dust storms.

When NASA’s Perseverance rover lands on Mars on Feb. 18, it is the most solemn robotic explorer yet to cross the Martian surface. The rover finds signs of ancient life at the site of Jezero Crater, where there was a river and lake delta 3.9 billion years ago.

The rover regularly talks to orbiters that float around Mars, most notably NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, or MRO. This orbiter, which arrived on Mars in 2006, will be the main communications relay to retrieve data and images collected by the rover.

Orbiters like MRO and MAVEN, or Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN, will help us know when the Perseverance rover comes down next week and get any of the first pictures and sounds – as the latest rover has two microphones this – it sets our way.

These are just two of the orbiters currently studying Mars, which also include NASA’s 2001 Mars Odyssey orbiter and the European Space Agency’s Mars Express orbiter and ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter, co. between ESA and Roscosmos, Russia’s space agency. Earlier in the week, the United Arab Emirates Probe of Hope and China’s Tianwen-1 orbiter joined them, with the latter expected to land a rover on the Martian surface later this year.
Tianwen-1, China’s mission to Mars, has gone into orbit
These orbiters, along with other missions currently exploring our solar system, send information back through NASA’s Deep Space Network. This “invisible network” of communications transmitted through space reaches three large ground-based radio antennas identically from each other.

They are located near Madrid in Spain, Canberra in Australia and Goldstone, near Barstow, California. The positioning of each large dish will allow constant communication with space missions as the Earth rotates.

The Deep Space Network allows communication with spacecraft as well as space tracking – all of which will be crucial when Perseverance hits Mars and its mission in the years to come.

Global view

The orbiters aren’t just there to help deliver information from the InSight rover, the Curiosity rover and the upcoming Perseverance rover. These spacecraft contain instrumental and camera facilities that have discovered amazing objects about Mars and laid the foundation for future study.

The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter carries the highest resolution camera around Mars, known as the High Resolution Image Science Test, or HiRISE. It has provided unprecedented views about surface features on Mars, said Leslie Tamppari, project associate expert for MRO.

This artist’s concept shows Orbiter Mars Reconnaissance going into orbit around Mars.

While it has captured images showing a vast expanse of Martian land, this camera can focus on features as small as a kitchen table. The mission has also mapped almost the entire planet.

In total, there are six instruments that have helped to understand more about the history of water on Mars as well as seasonal features on Mars, such as dust storms or landslides called Recurring Slope Lineae.

The mission has found ice beneath the surface of Mars, even in places like the Middle Ages where there appear to have been ancient glaciers, Tamppari said.

The orbiter has been orbiting Mars since 2006, so the team has been able to track changes on the Martian surface over time – a valuable tool when attempting a world that is so between different from our own.

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“The more we look, the more we discover,” Tamppari said.

One of the main questions around Mars is what happened to the planet. Scientists believe that Mars was a warmer, wetter planet with a thick atmosphere billions of years ago – like the early Earth – which made it likely that Mars could live. The feeling and the water were then removed.

Data collected by MRO and MAVEN are helping scientists understand how Mars lost so much water over 4 billion years. While MRO has been able to survey an area ranging from the Martian subsurface to 49 miles above the surface, MAVEN has focused on the upper atmosphere.

This artist’s concept shows the MAVEN spacecraft as it moves around the red planet.

The MAVEN orbiter arrived in Mars in 2014, the first mission dedicated to studying the high atmosphere of Mars and understanding how it interacts with both the low atmosphere as well as the sun and the solar wind (which are actually the grains emanating from the sun), said Bruce Jakosky, chief investigator for the MAVEN mission.

One of the main goals of the MAVEN mission is to understand the processes that have removed the Martian atmosphere over time.

“Most of the Martian atmosphere has been lost to space over time,” Jakosky said. “This is a key part of explaining the Martian climate change, from a warmer, wetter environment to the colder, drier environment we see today. That stands out as the ultimate discovery. important for MAVEN so far. “

Both spacecraft are still healthy and will continue with their science goals as they orbit Mars.

All eyes on the entrance

Images and data collected by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter helped select the Perseverance landing site of Jezero Crater. It is therefore appropriate for MRO to be Perseverance ‘s main point of contact.

Prior to landing, MRO monitors the state of the Martian atmosphere. On landing day, MROs stand side by side to spread all the vital information of persecution through all stages of entering the atmosphere, descending through it and landing on the surface.

That information will be sent back to Earth as received by the MRO.

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The natural delay is, of course, caused by speed – an 11-minute delay is one way between Mars and Earth.

The rovers need the orbiters to help them talk to the Earth because although they have small antennas that reach the Earth, these cannot be used to send back all the data in a timely manner.

Some of the instruments on MRO can cause interference, so these are closed during the communication relay. Fortunately, the MRO HiRISE camera is not one of the causes of intervention. Team scientists will try to capture an image of the Perseverance rover as he descends through the atmosphere with his parasites open, as they did when they landed for Curiosity.

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As soon as Perseverance lands, an MRO can use his camera to capture images of the landing site – as early as the day after landing.

The MAVEN orbiter will also be used to collect data from Stability as it enters the atmosphere and land – and data from the orbiter could be used to find out what happened if Nothing wrong when he came ashore, Jakosky said.

After landing, MAVEN will also support the Curiosity rover.

Many members of the MAVEN team are also on the Hope Probe team, including Jakosky, and he expects strong collaboration between the two missions as they explore the feel of Mars.

“This promises to be an exciting time at Mars,” Jakosky said.

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