NASA has given the green light to SpaceX to come up with a plan to adapt its Starlink satellites for use in a communications network on Mars.
Nine companies have been selected to conduct early-stage studies of concepts for commercial services to support low-cost, high-frequency missions to Mars including collecting samples left behind by the Perseverance rover for return to Earth. Proposals were submitted by nine companies, including Blue Origin, Lockheed Martin, United Launch Alliance, Astrobotic, Firefly Aerospace, Impulse Space, Albedo Space and Redwire Space. Winners will be paid $200,000 to $300,000 for their reports, which are due in August. To be able to support the communications of those missions now NASA is considering bringing Starlink satellites to Mars.
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Starlink coverage
For years, SpaceX executives have talked about using Starlink satellites in Martian orbit as part of billionaire founder Elon Musk’s vision to make humanity a multiplanetary species. In 2020, SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell told Time magazine that connectivity will be an essential part of the company’s Mars settlement plan.
Musk delved into more detail during last October’s International Astronautical Congress in Azerbaijan. “For Mars, essentially, you would need a laser relay system,” he said. “It depends on the bandwidth you’re looking for, but we would like terabit-level, maybe petabit-level data transfer between Earth and Mars.”
Therefore Musk could exploit NASA’s need to update its communication system on the Red Planet, which is based on satellites that are up to 23 years old. The space agency’s main focus for future Mars exploration is its multi-mission strategy to retrieve samples that have been cached by the Perseverance rover.
Last month, NASA said it would rework that strategy to reduce costs, in part by leveraging innovations from private industry. The innovations that are now at the heart of the Mars Exploration Commercial Services program could play a leading role in the revised strategy.
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Source: Universe Today, NASA
