The Mars 2020 Perseverance Rover communicates with Earth via a set of antennas. The antennas are Ultra-High Frequency Antenna, X-band High-Gain Antenna, X-band Low-Gain Antenna, which are all located on the Mars 2020 Perseverance Rover‘s top deck. Our 1:2 Peseverance Mars Rover Replica will perfectly replicate the appearance structure of the 3 types of antennas, but they won’ have the actual functions like the real Mars 2020 Perseverance Rover‘s antennas.
The Mars 2020 Perseverance Rover‘s Ultra-High Frequency antenna is located at the back of the rover, really close to the Mars 2020 Perseverance Rover‘s power system, MMRTG. Even though the Mars 2020 Perseverance Rover‘s Ultra-High Frequency Antenna can communicate directly with Earth, the long-distance could make the process take much longer (around 5 to 20 mins as Mars rotates) and more power. Therefore, in most cases, the Mars 2020 Perseverance Rover‘s Ultra-High Frequency antenna does not transmit data to Earth directly, but instead, the data transmission is via the Mars Orbiter antennas, and then the Mars Orbiter antenna will relay information with Earth’s Deep Space Network antennas.
Another advantage to utilizing the Mars Orbiter antenna is that due to the short-distance transmission, the Mars 2020 Perseverance Rover‘s Ultra-High Frequency antenna’s frequency rate can go as high as 2 MB/s. For our Perseverance Mars Rover Replica, it won’t need to transmit massive data between remote and the Mars Rover Replica’s receiving modules, but to be closer to the real Mars 2020 Perseverance Rover, we can arrange the receiving module in the structure of the Perseverance Rover Replica‘s Ultra-High Frequency antenna.
If you are interested in our 1:2 Perseverance Mars Rover Replica, you can check out [1:2 Perseverance Mars Rover Replica Design and Building Diary].