The Solar System Pony Express is a concept for sending data from deep space to Mars. The system would use a high-throughput optical communications network. The data would travel a long distance between Earth and Mars.
The Solar System Pony Express concept uses:
- Cycler orbits: Satellites regularly travel between Mars and Earth
- Network of satellites: Small satellites, or “data mules”, ferry data from Mars to Earth
- Nearby optical communicators: Two nearby optical communicators can achieve high data rates
The concept was developed by a team led by Joshua Vander Hook, who was then at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The name comes from the postal service that operated in 1860 between the Midwest and the West Coast.
So a team led by Joshua Vander Hook, then at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and now at a start-up called Outrider.ai, came up with a way to dramatically enhance the throughput of the DSN. In so doing, they gave it a very catchy name – the Solar System Pony Express.
NASA uses the Deep Space Network (DSN) to communicate with Mars. The DSN is a group of large radio antennas spread around the world. The antennas communicate with probes that have been launched beyond Earth’s orbit, including those around Mars. The DSN also sends instructions to the spacecraft and receives information about their location and status.
NASA also uses the following systems to communicate with Mars:
- Mars 2020: Uses an ultra-high frequency (UHF) antenna to communicate with Earth through NASA’s orbiters
- Mars Relay Network: Five spacecraft in orbit around Mars that transmit commands from Earth to surface missions
- High-gain antenna (HGA): Used by rovers to send messages directly to Earth
- X-band UHF antennas: Used by rovers to communicate with each other, orbiters, and the DSN
Communication to Mars takes a long time because of the distance between the planets. Radio waves travel at the speed of light, so it can take many minutes for a message to travel from Earth to Mars. The one-way trip can take between 3 and 20 minutes, depending on the planets’ positions in their orbits. This means that a round-trip message can take between 6 and 40 minutes.
Another challenge is that Earth can’t communicate directly with Mars about 30% of the time. This is because the planets are on opposite sides of the Sun.
Next-generation communications using lasers may be able to increase the data rate of communication between Earth and Mars
It could take almost 45 minutes to talk to astronauts forging our future on Mars and get their reply. The vast distance between Earth and Mars also challenges the incredibly weak radio-frequency communications systems used to transmit data back and forth.
The Solar System Pony Express (SSPE) is a mission concept that involves designing and optimizing Earth–Mars cycler orbits. The concept uses the fact that two nearby optical communicators can achieve very high data rates.
The SSPE uses small satellites, or data mules, that are assumed to have laser communicators and maintain cycler orbits. A cycler orbit is a special type of trajectory that regularly encounters two bodies. In this case, the two bodies are Mars and Earth.
The starting point of the low-thrust trajectory is computed by choosing a specific rideshare geometry for the main mission.
The Solar System Pony Express (SSPE) is a concept for sending data from deep space to Mars. The SSPE would use a network of small spacecraft, called “data mules”, to retrieve data from missions already operating on Mars. The SSPE would perform flybys of Mars at least once a year, retrieving 1–3 petabits of data per flyby.
The SSPE would use a high-throughput optical communications network. The SSPE would also use cycler orbits, where a spacecraft repeatedly orbits between two bodies in the solar system. The cyclers repeat every whole number multiple of synodic period between the two planets.
The SSPE would help to augment the data transmission capabilities of the Deep Space Network
The “courier” satellites use optical communications to receive 1-3 petabits from the surveyor at least once per year. They then travel close to earth where they can downlink the data quickly.(full article source google)
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