Current maximum bandwidth between Mars and Earth?

Question

What is the current maximum bandwidth between Mars and Earth (at their closest), accounting for any satellite/prober/orbiter that is either at Mars or already launched and en route?

So far I've found that the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter can achieve up to 6 Megabits/second, but I haven't been able to find capabilities of newer missions such as the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN Mission or the ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter.

The minimum distance from the Earth to Mars is about 54.6 million kilometers. The farthest apart they can be is about 401 million km. I think that makes a lot of difference. Can you [edit] and better define current? — , Oct 04 '16 at 08:19
What is average speed on a good day? What range ISRO MOM fall in that to its neighbour? — Isrorian, Oct 04 '16 at 15:30
@JanDoggen, in this case current is in reference to currently launched technology as opposed to under-development/theoretical technology. I added '(at their closet)' to resolve the ambiguity around distance. — Dan McGrath, Oct 05 '16 at 02:53
The 6 Megabits per second are achieved over a distance of 100 million kilometers. — Uwe, Oct 24 '16 at 09:01
Given that transmit power decreases with the square of the distance, it seems we could vastly increase data rates by adding some communications relay satellites between the orbit of Earth and Mars. — user4574, Jul 24 '22 at 01:43

Mark Omo · Accepted Answer · 2022-07-22T02:11:41.070

There are 8 active Mars missions at the time of writing (11/14/17)

Mars Odyssey

Design Downlink Requirement: 3.6 kb/s minium
On-Orbit Downlink Performance: up to 110,600 b/s for 34-m DSN passes
Source: DESCANSO Design and Performance Summary Series, Article 6, Odyssey Telecommunications

Design Downlink Requirement: 500 kbps minium
On-Orbit Downlink Performance: up to 5.22 Mbps using the X-Band system
Source: DESCANSO Design and Performance Summary Series, Article 12, Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Telecommunications

Opportunity

Design Downlink Requirement: 10 b/s minimum
On-Orbit Downlink Performance: 11,850 b/s to 3,555 b/s with HGA
Source: MER Telecommunications Chapter 7: Mars Exploration Rover Telecommunications

Design Downlink Speed: 2048 kbps (max)
Source: MAVEN Relay Operations Concept

Design Downlink Requirement: at least at 160 bits per second (bps) to a 34-m station or 800 bps to a 70-m station.
Source: DESCANSO Design and Performance Summary Series, Article 14, Mars Science Laboratory Telecommunications System Design

This is all the information that I could find on these missions, based on this the winner is the MRO at 5.22 Mbps, this makes sense as it's main mission is taking high-resolution images.

@ Mark Omo. I've proposed an edit for a new link to the Curiosity rover to make your answer even more valuable ! — Cornelis, Mar 26 '18 at 17:02
@Conelisinspace Thanks! I went ahead and extracted the downlink information — Mark Omo, Mar 26 '18 at 17:47

score -2 · Answer 2 · edited Aug 09 '22 at 09:28

Contractors have quoted me surprising figures for their communication systems. One vendor is offering Mars-capable hardware, and claiming a downlink of many megabits. I questioned whether they were serious numbers, or marketing. The sales rep didn’t reveal the company’s secret sauce, nor did I press any further.

I seriously doubted they’ve gone to optical comm (but neither can I rule it out). Assuming that they are, in fact, still offering an RF product, the physical layer is limited by the DSN. So they must be offering some state-of-the-art encoding or modulation or whatever, after the physical layer.

Also note that, as of early-2022, this vendor’s hardware has not actually reached Mars (as far as I know).

Current maximum bandwidth between Mars and Earth?

2 Answers2

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