In 2024, a man and a woman will go to the moon, fulfilling the Artemis mission. Being the twin sister of Apollo, Artemis should take a woman to the Moon. After all, here on Earth, women are mostly seduced with the promise of it.
NASA is taking care of future communication during Artemis, and also the future communication between people living on Earth and the ones who will live on Mars. Such equipment is critical for sending astronauts to Mars and to create a Martian base that would abound with data that will need to be monitored at both ends, earthly and martian.
The Deep Space Network (DSN) is a 34-meter-wide antenna built in the middle of California desert, where the headquarters of NASA is. The new antenna’s name will be Deep Space Station-23 (DSS-23). It will take another two and a half years until it will be fully functional.
With it, there are thirteen DSN’s antennas altogether. It is the fifth of six currently planned antennas to enable science and space exploration.
NASA Plans For Improved Communications Between Earth and Mars
DSS-23 will function as a radio antenna, and it will also be specially equipped for lasers beamed from distant spacecraft. This will improve the data rate from Mars for about ten times.
Although lasers have an inherent vice when it comes to clouds, NASA reassured the concerns: the new dish is set in the Gladstone desert. Having a humid subtropical climate, it has at least eight months with a mean temperature above 10 °C (50 °F), so the chances are that 60% of the year, clouds are not a menace.
As exploration expands, so does the communication system. Clustered in Goldstone (California), Madrid (Spain), and Canberra (Australia), the Deep Space Network is similar to a phone line, keeping Earth connected to spacecraft sent in outer space.
In a few years, by the time DSS-23 will be ready to prove itself, tests will also be possible. Psyche is an orbiter that will carry an experimental laser communications terminal and will be able to communicate with the new antenna.