Antennas for Relaying Information Between Earth and Mars
Mars Express has three antennas:
Low-Gain Antenna
a 40-centimeter aerial protruding from the spacecraft, used when Mars
Express is close to Earth at the beginning of its journey
High-Gain Antenna
a 1.8-meter in diameter high-gain antenna attached to one face of the spacecraft that will:
- during cruise:
receive and transmit radio signals between the spacecraft and Earth
- during science operations:
point towards Mars for 1.5 hours to collect data and then point towards
Earth for communications lasting up to six hours of the spacecraft's
7.5-hour martian orbit
UHF antenna
a special antenna on the spacecraft that will collect data from the
Beagle 2 lander each time the orbiter passes over lander
U.S. Participation
The US contribution to communications is the use of two Deep Space
Network tracking stations. For more information, see the
Communications section.