How do NASA probes communicate with Earth from such a distance?
NASA sends spacecraft and spacecraft millions, if not billions, of miles from Earth on missions. Despite the great distances, these sensors and rovers are capable of transmitting data to scientists on Earth.
Have you ever wondered how NASA can achieve what it does? In this article, you’ll learn the basics of how space exploration remains Earth-bound.
NASA’s Space Network Main Hub
According to NASA, they use an international antenna network known as the Deep Space Network (DSN).
The antennas are purposely placed worldwide and are part of three large DSN axes separated by 120° precision. Here are the locations: Goldstone in California’s Mojave Desert, as well as unknown places in Canberra, Australia, and Madrid, Spain.
NASA ensures that even if the Earth rotates, they can still follow all their active space probes throughout the universe thanks to the location of the DSN axis.
‘Home phone’ for Mars rover
Even if modern Martian explorers don’t use phones, this iconic line from the film “ET: The Extraterrestrial” fits the bill perfectly.
The rover uses two types of antennas, according to WIRED: a high-gain microwave antenna to transmit large chunks of data directly to Earth, and a low-gain antenna to send data to other orbits around our planet or Mars.
Data from the Mars rover will then be transmitted to scientists on Earth via these sensors.
By “anticipating” an orbital vehicle passing directly above it, the rover can communicate data. The Mars rover will send data to the orbiter at a rate of 250 kilobits per second once it reaches the correct position.
See also: New NASA mission critical images as new evidence of water on Mars
Transferring data still takes time
Despite being 242 million miles between Earth and Mars, NASA is technically capable of sending and receiving data fairly quickly. However, it is still not possible to transfer data in real time.
According to the original WIRED story, even at the speed of light, a signal containing data on Mars would take more than 10 minutes to reach scientists on Earth.
What about those far away in space?
Voyagers are the two most distant man-made space probes NASA has ever developed. Voyager 1 is currently 141 astronomical units (AUs) from Earth. News from Brinkwire in a nutshell.
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