• Question: how do they control the rovers in mars from earth?

    Asked by pmcmyler59 on 6 Nov 2020.
    • Photo: Mohammed Taj-Eldin

      Mohammed Taj-Eldin answered on 6 Nov 2020: last edited 9 Nov 2020 2:01 pm

      Hi pmcmyler59,
      Scientists developed a three set of huge antenna arrays positioned at three different locations on the Earth: in USA, Spain, and in Australia to allow them to communicate with and control the rovers on Mars. Why three not one? because the Earth rotates constantly and if they use only one antenna in a certain country, this antenna will loose a direct light of sight during some part of the day with the satellites communicating with Mars. Therefore, they built three distributed arrays at three locations at 120 degrees from each other such as at least one antenna maintains a direct connection with Mars.

      Now in each location, there is an array with massive satellite dishes. Now, why do we need an array of dishes and why huge dishes? because Mars is very far from Earth (almost half the distance from Earth to the Sun) and to have wireless signals reached to Mars, they needed to build massive satellite dishes to sharply focus the wireless signal and strengthen its amplitude to reach Mars. The scientists who built these are electronic engineers.
      More details about these dishes can be seen in the following video:

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