Mars Express breaks record by transmitting data from Perseverance

November 11 () –

ESA’s Mars Express, which has been orbiting Mars for 19 yearshas sent test data to Earth from the Perseverance rover, reaching the transmission record for 7 surface missions.

Landers and rovers on Mars collect data that helps scientists answer fundamental questions about the geology, atmosphere, surface environment, history of water, and the potential for life on the Red Planet. ESA reports.

To bring this knowledge back to Earth, they first transmit the data to the spacecraft in orbit around Mars. These orbiters then they use their much larger and more powerful transmitters to “broadcast” the data through space to large deep-space antennas on Earth.

Testing with Perseverance coincides with the orbiter’s 10th Martian anniversary. Mars Express arrived on Mars on December 25, 2003., almost 19 Earth years ago. Since a Martian year is equal to approximately 687 Earth days, the spacecraft celebrated 10 Martian years in orbit on October 16, 2022.

In 2004, just two months after reaching Mars, Mars Express flew past NASA’s Spirit rover. ESA’s orbiter sent commands to the rover, which then sent its data back to the orbiter. in the first demonstration of an interagency communications network around another planet.

Commands for the rover first had to be transferred from the Spirit Operations Team at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), USA, to the ESOC in Germany. Here they were translated into commands for Mars Express, they were then connected to the orbiter and sent to the rover.

Seven more communication tests between Mars Express and NASA’s Opportunity rover were conducted in early 2008. Building on the tests with Spirit, they helped optimize ESA-NASA communication on Mars.

On May 25, 2008, Mars Express tracked the descent of the Phoenix lander and transmitted the data to NASA. to help confirm the data from their own orbiters. In the weeks after landing, Mars Express once again demonstrated its ability to reliably transmit data from the Martian surface to Earth.

In 2012, Mars Express was trusted to transmit crucial science data from NASA’s Curiosity rover to Earth.

On the morning of October 6, ESA’s orbiter aligned its lander’s communication antenna to point at Curiosity far below the surface.

For 15 minutes, the NASA rover transmitted scientific data to ESA’s satellite, before Mars Express turned to point its most powerful high-gain antenna toward Earth. and begin to transmit the precious information.

The data included this image of a rock acquired by Curiosity during the first soil tests performed with its mobile laboratory. Mars Express sent the image to ESOC in Germany via ESA’s 35m diameter deep space antenna in New Norcia, Australia. All transmitted data was immediately made available to JPL in California for processing and analysis..

It was the little brother of Mars Express, ESA’s Trace Gas Orbiter, that took the next step and established the first routine interagency interplanetary data relay support when it began supporting NASA’s InSight lander. But Mars Express continued its important work by acting as contingency support for yet another new lander.

Over the past year, Mars Express has conducted tests with the Chinese Zhurong rover to assess the compatibility of the radio system and the possibility of supporting data transmission with the rover.

In the last two years, the orbiter has helped monitor conditions at the Perseverance landing sitepartnered with ESA’s Trace Gas Orbiter to carry out 18 years of radio science in two months and received a major software upgrade.