Mars to Earth at an average of 29 kbits/s
mars.jpl.nasa.gov
Mars to Earth at an average of 29 kbits/s
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Re: Mars to Earth at an average of 29 kbits/s
#2It's awesome that they've been involving the public so much in the details of how the rover mission really works. I'd actually been wondering about this exact question, since it seems to be one of the limiting factors for the quality of images and such. From a physics standpoint, sending data is clearly a lot more complicated than I'd previously assumed.
Re: Mars to Earth at an average of 29 kbits/s
#3It's awesome that they've been involving the public so much in the details of how the rover mission really works. I'd actually been wondering about this exact question, since it seems to be one of the limiting factors for the quality of images and such. From a physics standpoint, sending data is clearly a lot more complicated than I'd previously assumed.
Yes, the clue is in the comparison to 'home modems'. The technology was finalised 2004, which means design around 2000 or so?
I'm impressed with the reception technology that allows 'direct to home' communication at all given the power levels available.
Re: Mars to Earth at an average of 29 kbits/s
#4So those are the lander->earth and lander->sat speeds. How fast can the satellites transmit to earth? If we somehow always had a sat in reach of the lander, how much data would we be able to send?
Edit: Did the research. MRO's antenna can handle .5 to 4 megabits depending on the distance between planets. Wow, having to wait for flybys is a huge bottleneck. http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/mro/mission/communications/commxban...
Re: Mars to Earth at an average of 29 kbits/s
#5So those are the lander->earth and lander->sat speeds. How fast can the satellites transmit to earth? If we somehow always had a sat in reach of the lander, how much data would we be able to send? Edit: Did the research. MRO's antenna can handle .5 to 4 megabits depending on the distance between planets. Wow, having to wait for flybys is a huge bottleneck. http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/mro/mission/communications/commxban.…
I wonder if it's possible to launch an orbiter in Mars synchronous orbit. That'll eliminate the bottleneck.
Re: Mars to Earth at an average of 29 kbits/s
#6What's the latency of that data connection?
Re: Mars to Earth at an average of 29 kbits/s
#7What's the latency of that data connection?
I asked this question on quora, about 14 minutes.
http://www.quora.com/Curiosity-Mars-Rover-1/What-is-the-bit-...
Re: Mars to Earth at an average of 29 kbits/s
#8Using Sloppy to view websites gives a reasonable idea of how slow this is.
Re: Mars to Earth at an average of 29 kbits/s
#9So those are the lander->earth and lander->sat speeds. How fast can the satellites transmit to earth? If we somehow always had a sat in reach of the lander, how much data would we be able to send? Edit: Did the research. MRO's antenna can handle .5 to 4 megabits depending on the distance between planets. Wow, having to wait for flybys is a huge bottleneck. http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/mro/mission/communications/commxban.…
I wonder if it's possible to launch an orbiter in Mars synchronous orbit. That'll eliminate the bottleneck.
Wouldn't just a higher orbit achieve the same thing? You'd be in sight for longer periods, right? Without locking you into a location the way synchronous would.
The current orbiters are primarily for imaging, so it makes sense that they're as low as possible. If you were always going to have several surface missions, it might make sense to have higher orbiters primarily tasked with communication relay.
Re: Mars to Earth at an average of 29 kbits/s
#10What's the latency of that data connection?
The latency is about 14 minutes, which is funny because we consider 100 ms latency a bad thing here on earth.