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this post was submitted on 13 Nov 2023
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Can we put some relay satellites at the L4 and L5 Lagrange points already? It seems like something we should have done years ago...
Can we? Yes. Should we do it right now? That's debatable.
The question is how much this would cost vs getting a two weeks offline every 26 months?
These two weeks do not create any additional requirements (you already have to make sure the probes can survive for a few weeks without comms), science does not fully stops during these two weeks. And it gives an opportunity to do long duration maintenance on the ground segment.
Frankly, there is little need to spend >$100M for such relays satellites until we actually have a permanent human presence on Mars.
Even when we have a permanent human presence on Mars, there isn't a great necessity to maintain contact for those two weeks. Even if something goes wrong, it's not like anyone could send help. Essentially it would be just so we knew what was going on, but that's not really a full time requirement.
You've for the start of a sci Fi movie there : Mars comes out from behind the sun to find communication from Earth has stopped
Marvin got his hands on the Q35 space modulater didn't he?