Throughout a gathering with the Mars Exploration Program Evaluation Group, an inner NASA working crew devoted to supporting missions to Mars included a pitch from Elon Musk’s SpaceX to deploy Starlink satellites across the purple planet to create “Marslink.” Having a thick layer of satellites round Mars will surely make transmission simpler, as it might make the comms goal bigger than the planet itself and would doubtless pace up intra-Mars comms when that turns into crucial. Nevertheless it in all probability received’t demonstrably pace up communication between Earth and Mars, not less than to not the extent Elon is pitching, as a result of Mars is actually fucking far-off.
The Marslink pitch consists of “a number of SpaceX satellites positioned in Mars orbit to offer full visibility and interoperability for floor and orbital property,” and the flexibility to “exceed” NASA’s requirement for 4 mbps switch. For reference, your common web connection within the U.S. is buzzing round 250 mpbs, and also you want round 100 mbps for dependable video streaming. Final week Elon Musk mentioned in one in every of his 100-plus day by day tweets that “That is only a very primary first step. Earth and Mars will finally want better than petabit/sec connectivity.” Petabit/second speeds are presently solely theoretically attainable with fiberoptic cables, and we’re undoubtedly not linking Earth to Mars with fiber web.
Mars doesn’t transfer in the identical orbit across the solar, or on the identical pace as Earth. At its closest, Mars is a mere 34 million miles away, about half the space from the Earth to the Solar. When Mars is reverse Earth in its orbit, with the Solar between them, that distance will increase to over 250 million miles. If you happen to may talk on the pace of sunshine, as many laser-based satellite tv for pc transmissions can, the pace at which you’ll load something remains to be depending on the pace of sunshine. That 250 million miles takes 22 minutes and 22 seconds for mild (or data) to traverse. Petabit/second speeds between Mars and Earth are unattainable till we develop faster-than-light journey, which is, you recognize, not attainable based mostly on our present understanding of physics.
Elon Musk, once more on Twitter, steered that Starlink may create a “knowledge bridge” to hop knowledge from one satellite tv for pc to a different alongside a relay system. One follower even steered a “internet of satellites across the solar” to maintain folks in house and on different planets linked to the Earth web. “A protracted chain of modified future technology Starlink satellites between 1 and 1.5 AU would do it,” claims Musk. If you happen to don’t know, an AU (Astronomical Unit) is 93 million miles, or the common distance between the Earth and the Solar.
Right here’s the issue. Satellite tv for pc hopping doesn’t cut back the pace at which you’ll talk with a distant planet. Area remains to be house, lightspeed remains to be lightspeed, and the space doesn’t get shorter since you put a number of satellites between right here and there. It’s attainable that leaping from satellite tv for pc to satellite tv for pc may improve the scale of the info switch, but it surely is not going to cut back latency time between Mars and Earth in any manner. In actual fact, hopping from satellite tv for pc to satellite tv for pc will really improve processing time and make the entire thing slower.
Is Elon Musk going to be the one to crack faster-than-light journey and quantum entanglement? I’m going to exit on a limb right here and say I’ve my doubts. SpaceX is scheduled to deploy 5 unmanned rockets to Mars in 2026, and Elon says folks will likely be going to Mars by 2028. Once more, I’ve my doubts.
