What? No talk about the Mars Rover?

[Ragnarok]

Originally posted by David E. Gervais:
I was thinking, if they had a permanent satalite in orbit around mars, the future landers could save on payload by using it as a relay to send info back to earth. That way they wouldn't need such big bulky transmitters. The space could be used for more scientific equipment.

Just a thought, Cheers!

I thought they already had something like this? I was thinking that is why they could only try at certain times to communicate with the Beagle because they had to wait for the sat. to be in the right orbit to recieve the transmission from the surface. Maybe I was mistaken. Wouldn't be the first time, that's for sure.