Walking the final day of the #SpaceApps Challenge. Our Team members are working creatively and innovatively in solving solutions each. All together making a better solution to converse with Mars. So much exciting!

Mars, do you copy? over

Challenge

Design an interactive application to explore the challenge of communicating with astronauts on Mars from Earth.

Overview

Our project is a simple web application that will show possible challenges of sending data between Earth and Mars, including the scenario when the Sun will block Mars completely during solar conjunction.

Potential Considerations

• Right now, communication between Earth and Mars orbit is done site-to-site, without any relaying devices in-between. What are the advantages and disadvantages of this setup? Think about how your application could demonstrate the advantages and disadvantages in the user experience.
• How would coverage change based on time of day and time of "Earth Rise / Earth Set" if no relay is used?
• Bandwidth is very limited when sending data millions of miles. How do the various communication methods compare according to bandwidth? In what situations would certain methods be advantageous over others?
• How could your application present all of this information to gamify the experience, if you choose to make a game-like solution.
• What options would astronauts on Mars have for browsing the internet?

Challenges

• Satellite malfunction
• Data missing / corrupted (inoperable satellite)
• Different radio waves and how far they can reach across space
• Interference from other planets and star bodies (corrupt signal)
• Mars blocked by the sun; find optimal communication times