TV From Mars

[Leovinus]

When people finally do go to Mars, I'm sure that the folks back home will stand for nothing less than as-it-happens-transmitted-at-the-speed-of-light live television of the event. Now of course, the current set of spacecraft don't have this ability. What would it take to pull this off if it is even possible? Can the Deep Space Network receive television signals from that far away? Can a television signal be broadcast from that far away? And most importantly, could it be done in HDTV? <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[dragon04]

If a 5MW transmitter (a typical US UHF trnasmitter) were set up on Mars, TV back to earth would be very possible.<br /><br />Using facts and figures from this page :<br /><br />http://contactincontext.org/cic/v2i1/lucy.htm<br /><br />The dish at Arecibo could detect and demodulate a TV signal from up to 51AU. So a smaller dish could easily receive TV signals from Mars given a transmitter of sufficient power. Or Arecibo could receive and decode a signal from a smaller transmitter.<br /><br />There are tons of formulas at http://www.setifaq.org/faq.html#1.2.3<br />if you wanna play around with numbers.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <em>"2012.. Year of the Dragon!! Get on the Dragon Wagon!".</em> </div>

 

[najab]

The best way to do this would be to use a laser to send the information back. A satellite in a very high orbit or relay station on the moon would convert the laser signal down to radio frequencies for the final leg to Earth so that we could get 24/7 communications without interruption due to atmospherics.

 

[formulaterp]

NASA's Mars Telecommunications Orbiter was designed to test laser-based communications, unfortunately it was cancelled to free up money for the CEV development. I'm sure once the return to the moon has been accomplished, something like MTO will be resurrected.<br /><br />Of course "as-it-happens" and "transmitted-at-the-speed-of-light" are mutually exclusive with respect to Mars mission coverage.

 

[Leovinus]

They aren't mutually exclusive. What I meant was that the events would be transmitted as it happens and televised to Earthlings as they are received at the speed of light. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>