Next Mars Mission Will Look for Landing Sites

fenimor writes "NASA's next mission to Mars to be launched on Aug. 10, 2005 - Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter - will examine potential landing sites and provide a high-data-rate communications relay for for future surface missions. Weighing 2,180 kilograms, the spacecraft will be the largest ever to orbit Mars and with the largest telescopic camera ever sent into orbit around another planet, will reveal Mars surface features as small as a kitchen table."

Comments

Hmm, communications relay

[silicon not in the v]

There are a couple of neat aspects of this orbiter. The long distance photography is cool, but I like the idea of its being a long term communications relay. That would take a lot of the transmission power requirements off of the surface probes and landers. They would just have to have a strong enough signal to get up to orbit, and then the orbiter(apparently with the help of solar power) would be able to retransmit back to Earth.