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Phoenix666 [soylentnews.org] writes:

Earlier this month, radio dishes from three deep-space networks combined to catch faint 'survival' whispers from one of ESA's Mars orbiters [phys.org], underlining the value of international collaboration for exploring the Red Planet.

For the first time ever, deep-space ground stations from ESA, NASA and Russia's Roscosmos joined together, on 13 August, to receive ultra-faint signals from ESA's ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter, now circling Mars.

Engineers carefully designed the test to probe the limits of what their ground stations could achieve, and confirm that all three could catch signals from the orbiter should it ever switch itself into the low-power, minimal 'survival mode'.

This special mode can occur if a software or hardware glitch causes multiple onboard computer reboots.

The test took place just as Mars was moving from the opposite side of the sun, where it is at its greatest distance from us.

This meant that ExoMars was more than 397 million km from the three dishes, a situation that occurs only every two years, when communications are at their most difficult.

Scientists can still work together.

Original Submission