**:Technology**.
The current communications infrastructure cannot meet the needs of future Martian inhabitants. The future development of space travel will inevitably be accompanied by the emergence of better means of communication. So, is there likely to be an internet on Mars in the future?
Science News**
Maybe a few decades from now, when astronauts land on Mars, they'll need new ones to communicate with each other, or to connect with surrounding equipment, or to communicate with Earth's mission control centers. Astronauts on distant planets prefer to have ** chats with their loved ones on Earth, with clear call quality and no delays.
However, it seems impossible to connect to WiFi on Earth on Mars, because the Earth is so far away from Mars. People may need another strategy. Claire Parfit, systems engineer at the European Space Agency (ESA), said that building a good communications infrastructure is essential for humans to complete the mission to Mars.
The future development of space travel will inevitably be accompanied by the emergence of better means of communication. So, is there probably an internet on Mars?
Choreographed dance "Connecting Earth Fire Communication."
Yang Yuguang, vice chairman of the Space Transportation Committee of the International Astronautical Federation, said in an interview with science and technology reporters that it is impossible for humans to colonize Mars in this century, but it is necessary to establish a permanent residence base here. Based on this premise, the Internet will be built on Mars.
But before we can build the Mars Internet, we need to understand how the existing means of communication on Mars work.
According to Science News, much of Earth's communication with Mars takes place through the Mars relay network. Currently, this network is formed by five probes operating in orbit around Mars, which send commands to Martian terrestrial missions and receive scientific data from them. The five probes are NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution Probe, the Mars Odyssey Probe, and ESA's Mars Express and Trace Gas Orbiter. NASA describes it as "a choreographed dance."
ESA is currently working on the "Mars Communication and Navigation Infrastructure" concept. If it moves forward, the project will enhance the current relay network and develop a set of payloads related to communications and navigation that can be carried on any vehicle to Mars. Once deployed in orbit, these payloads will act as nodes to provide wireless communications on Mars. They can also be left there for future missions.
Space laser communication is a key technology.
While conventional radio frequencies are sufficient for low data rates, 10 to 100 times as much data can be transmitted in the same time frame using a laser link. Since light waves are more frequent, hundreds of thousands of times more frequent than radio waves, they can hold more information. Therefore, this type of optical signal is exactly the way forward for space communication.
Laser communication is a key technology required for broadband in space. Yang Yuguang said, "Laser communication is a communication technology that uses laser beams for information transmission, which is a kind of electromagnetic wave. Laser communication has many advantages over traditional radio wave communication. ”
Specifically, laser communication has short light waves and high frequencies, enabling higher data transmission rates. Laser communication can also highly concentrate the energy of light in a small spatial range, and the energy required for communication is relatively low, helping to reduce the energy consumption of communication systems. The small divergence angle of the laser beam allows the communication signal to be transmitted to the target location more accurately. In addition, laser communication is less disturbed in a vacuum environment outside the atmosphere than radio waves, and its performance is more stable.
One of the key tasks of NASA's Psyche spacecraft, which was launched in October last year, was to introduce a deep space optical communications (DSOC) system to test the feasibility of laser communications. DSoC represents not only an enhancement of deep space communication capabilities, but also a paradigm shift that promises to revolutionize deep space missions.
In mid-November last year, the Psyche spacecraft sent data to Earth from a distance of 16 million kilometers. In December, it sent a piece of cute cat ** from 31 million kilometers away. This is the first time NASA has used a laser to transmit from deep space**.
ESA is also exploring long-distance optical communications. A project called ScyLight is supporting research and development in optics and quantum technologies to enable secure and fast data communication in space.
The idea of building the Internet of Mars.
Yang Yuguang described his idea to reporters: in the future, if you want to go online on Mars, then there should be a large relay station in the Earth orbit and in the Mars orbit. Laser communication can be used between the two relay stations, while radio communication is used between the relay stations and Earth and Mars, respectively.
Yang Yuguang said that when the sun orbits between the earth and Mars, because the sun's electromagnetic spectrum is very wide, it will inevitably interfere with earth-fire communication. At that time, two relay stations will be set up at the Sun-Earth Lagrange points L4 and L5 to avoid the problem of solar occlusion.
Last June, Tobias Pfanzelt and David Behm** of the Technical University of Berlin in Germany proposed that a constellation of moons orbiting Mars could provide a branch internet for the Red Planet.
The proposed Mars network would be similar to the Starlink system operated by SpaceX. On Earth, the cost of broadband internet and mobile** coverage via satellite is high. But on Mars, such a system may be cheaper and easier than building a huge network on Earth.
Using edge computing, Pfanzelt and Behm** deduced that a constellation of 81 low-orbit satellites orbiting Mars is enough to cover the entire planet. They will provide a local communication system that will be an extension of the Internet of Earth.