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How do Mars rovers send data back to Earth? Do they have some kind of built in WI-FI routers or is there any other connection?

Uwe
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RANSARA009
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    Please ask only one question per question. If you have two questions, ask two questions. It would also help if you could explain what research you have done, what answers you found, and why those answers were unsatisfactory to you. That way, you avoid people wasting their time telling you stuff that you already know. – Jörg W Mittag Sep 06 '21 at 11:17
  • Please clarify your specific problem or provide additional details to highlight exactly what you need. As it's currently written, it's hard to tell exactly what you're asking. – Community Sep 06 '21 at 13:11
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    "How do Mars rovers send data back to Earth?" can be answered by looking through this site. Even requiring three tags gets enough answers to answer this. communication + mars + rovers – uhoh Sep 06 '21 at 22:37
  • World's longest Ethernet cable. – Mark Sep 09 '21 at 00:38

1 Answers1

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Generally what happens is that radio signals are sent from the Martian surface to a spacecraft orbiting Mars, which then sends the data to Earth.

As an example, the current NASA missions on the Martian surface (Perseverance, Curiosity, and InSight) send data via radio signals to the Mars Relay Network, which consists of various NASA and ESA Martian orbiters. This network then relays the radio signals to Earth that is picked up by a network of three radio antenna facilities known as the NASA Deep Space Network.

Update: Directly sending a radio signal to Earth from a Mars rover is also possible through a High Gain Antenna, albeit at a lower data rate (ex. Curiosity and Perseverance).

procyon
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