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#1 2005-03-29 20:21:35

EarthWolf
Member
From: Missouri, U.S.A.
Registered: 2004-07-20
Posts: 59

Re: Sun-Mars L-4 and L-5

Hello,

I was wondering: In the potential colonization of Mars, would Mars' L-4 or L-5 points be active locations in Mars's development?

Cordially,

EarthWolf


" Man will not always stay on the Earth. "

Konstantin Tsiolkovsky

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#2 2005-05-02 21:46:59

MarsDog
Member
From: vancouver canada
Registered: 2004-03-24
Posts: 852

Re: Sun-Mars L-4 and L-5

lagrange.gif

http://www.physics.montana.edu/faculty/ … ge.html]We see that L4 and L5 correspond to hilltops and L1, L2 and L3 correspond to saddles.


L4, L5 may not be good points to go to, but good to go from.
If you assembled something there, then perturb it to go somewhere with little energy ?

L1 may be a good waiting point, to store or exchange ?

http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/lagrange.html] Interplanetary Superhighway ?

http://www.space.com/news/beyond_iss_020926-1.html] Earth-Moon Lagrange point, L1 -- a literal Gateway to the future of space exploration

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#3 2005-05-02 23:32:07

RobS
Banned
From: South Bend, IN
Registered: 2002-01-15
Posts: 1,701
Website

Re: Sun-Mars L-4 and L-5

Both L4 and L5 of the Sun-Mars system have asteroids. If I remember right, L4 has Eureka, an asteroid about 2 km across, which may have been there more or less since the beginning of the solar system. But it's not clear to me these little asteroids, located 250 million kilometers from Mars (as far from Mars as the sun!) have any value.

                  -- RobS

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#4 2005-05-05 04:05:25

MarsDog
Member
From: vancouver canada
Registered: 2004-03-24
Posts: 852

Re: Sun-Mars L-4 and L-5

But it's not clear to me these little asteroids, located 250 million kilometers from Mars (as far from Mars as the sun!) have any value.

Could concentrations of heavier dust form, at L4 and L5,
similar to gold settling in holes at creek bottoms ?

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#5 2005-05-26 21:17:18

RobS
Banned
From: South Bend, IN
Registered: 2002-01-15
Posts: 1,701
Website

Re: Sun-Mars L-4 and L-5

Heavier than what?

Eureka and such are probably carbonaceous chondrites, which means they are high (5-10%) in water. So they have that going for them. But they ARE NOT NEAR anything. You wouldn't even want to use them as a communications relay point because they're 750 light seconds (12.5 light minutes!) from Mars. When Earth is at its closest, its only 3 light minutes from Mars.

          -- RobS

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#6 2005-05-27 05:34:10

clark
Member
Registered: 2001-09-20
Posts: 6,362

Re: Sun-Mars L-4 and L-5

Wouldn't we want to use L4 or L5 for communication relay to Earth when the sun is between their orbits?

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#7 2005-05-31 07:43:53

Hop
Member
From: Ajo
Registered: 2004-04-19
Posts: 146
Website

Re: Sun-Mars L-4 and L-5

The Earth Sun L4 and L5 would be better places for communication relayers. The path is shorter by .52 AU. Interestingly enough the long legs for both these paths is the same: 2.2 AU. But the short legs differ, earth's being 1 AU and Mars being 1.52 AU.
L4L5relays.jpg
The earth L4 relay could get double the solar energy with the same collector and is closer to Earth.
The only advantage I see for the Mars L4 is the Mars Trojan asteroids RobS mentioned.


Hop's [url=http://www.amazon.com/Conic-Sections-Celestial-Mechanics-Coloring/dp/1936037106]Orbital Mechanics Coloring Book[/url] - For kids from kindergarten to college.

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#8 2005-06-01 00:07:52

RobS
Banned
From: South Bend, IN
Registered: 2002-01-15
Posts: 1,701
Website

Re: Sun-Mars L-4 and L-5

Even better than Earth-sun L4 and L5 would be a satellite on some sort of looping orbit that carried it a few million km from Earth when Mars was at conjunction; just far enough to receive signals from Mars, but close enough to minimze additional time delays.

        -- RobS

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#9 2024-04-13 03:15:52

Mars_B4_Moon
Member
Registered: 2006-03-23
Posts: 9,206

Re: Sun-Mars L-4 and L-5

an old topic almost 20 years ago, worth bumping


NASA considering commercial Mars data relay satellites
https://spacenews.com/nasa-considering- … atellites/

A constellation of commercial satellites could serve as a communications relay system for future NASA missions, such as an orbiter later this decade to search for subsurface ice on Mars.

In recent presentations to advisory committees, NASA officials have discussed the possibility of working with industry to place several satellites into orbit around Mars that would serve as relays for other missions, notably the proposed Mars Ice Mapper. Such satellites, they said, could greatly increase the amount of data missions can return to Earth and end reliance on aging science missions that also serve as data relays.


Venus Equilateral Relay Station
https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?37810

a scifi concept?

The setting for most of the stories in the series is Venus Equilateral, a space station three miles long and one mile in diameter that serves as a communications relay between Venus, Earth, and Mars whenever interference from the Sun prevents line-of-sight communication between them. Venus Equilateral was formed out of a nickel-iron asteroid that was moved into Venus' L4 point. At the time the stories take place, the asteroid has been completely reworked, resulting in a burnished steel cylinder with a large docking port at one end and a bank of communications dishes at the other.

Venus Equilateral spins on its axis to provide its roughly 3000 inhabitants with centrifugal pseudo-gravity. On the outermost level, with just over one Earth gravity, are living quarters for the station's crew. The next level in consists of offices, recreation centers, stores, churches, the cafeteria, and Joe's: the station's only bar. The innermost level, surrounding the station's zero-gravity axis, houses automatic machinery, the hydroponic farms, storerooms, the servogyroscopes and their beam finders, and the air plant (which consists of genetically engineered Martian sawgrass that efficiently renews the station's air supply via photosynthesis)

The person exploring on Mars might innovate and find their own way to communicate with the next Mars village, they might lay cables or bounce radio off the atmosphere

Man exploited asteroids at Lagrange points may have mirror laser reflectors on the surface, a carrier wave could broadcast voice telephone maybe send a web-cam clip of an astronaut talking into the camera telling the Moon and Earth what supplies are needed and what remote robot tasks need to be done.

During Rayleigh scattering, shorter wavelengths such as blue and violet, scatter more by the molecules and particles compared to longer wavelengths, such as red and orange, the shorter wavelengths are closer in size to the molecular and particle dimensions, Attenuation determines how much fiber you use in an application or how much light your optical source must produce, units are decibels per kilometre (dB/km)

pdf

Wave Attenuation and Dispersion
http://seisweb.usask.ca/classes/GEOL483 … uation.pdf

Infrared, Optical and UV could be beamed as a transmission but an Orbiting Earth satellite might need to convert signals to radio on a cloudy day or change the signal on a day with atmospheric conditions

Intense ultraviolet–visible–infrared full-spectrum laser
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41377-023-01256-6

All-optical space-air-sea communication network makes its debut
https://physicsworld.com/a/all-optical- … its-debut/
Physics World


Ultraviolet communication technique and its application
https://www.researchgate.net/publicatio … pplication

China's CASIC is poised to start their tests of inter-satellite and space-ground laser communications - China Daily
https://www.chinadaily.com.cn/a/202403/ … bbcf2.html

Intense narrow-bandwidth extreme ultraviolet laser system tunable up to 20 eV
https://pubs.aip.org/aip/rsi/article-ab … olet-laser

NASA Set to Demonstrate X-ray Communications in Space
https://www.nasa.gov/technology/nasa-se … -in-space/

X-rays have much shorter wavelengths than both infrared and radio. This means that, in principle, XCOM can send more data for the same amount of transmission power. The X-rays can broadcast in tighter beams, thus using less energy when communicating over vast distances.

If successful, the experiment could increase interest in the communications technology, which could permit more efficient gigabits-per-second data rates for deep space missions. Gigabits per second is a data transfer rate equivalent to one billion bits, or simple binary units, per second. These extremely high-speed rates of data transfer are not currently common, but new research projects have pushed computing capability toward this range for some technologies.


How are Data Rate and Bandwidth Related? ("a super clear explanation!")
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZBSvMbO0mPQ

Oscilloscope Bandwidth and Sample Rate Tutorial
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VBJWkceO1OA

pdf
NASA’s Next Generation >100 Gbps Optical Communications Relay
https://ntrs.nasa.gov/api/citations/201 … 030264.pdf

an old video from more than 10 years ago, there was to be an MTO mission

'Laser Communications to Revolutionize Space Travel | NASA GSFC Satellite Bandwidth HD Video'

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vi5jnExnjxA


on Earth

The Best Mobile Ham Radios for Your Car, Truck, and Other Uses
https://windupradio.com/best-mobile-ham-radios/

Budget mobile ham radios also good for using as a base station ?
https://forums.radioreference.com/threa … on.438758/

'Baofeng Ham Radio'
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D-no8kUlzYU

if we have satellites around Mercury, Venus, the Moon of Earth, the Asteroids, Mars could remain almost in constant email communication even during difficult blockout periods, L1 to monitor Solar Storms, L2 perhaps a type of Mars 'Hubble' to look into space and network with telescopes on Earth, L3 and L4 would be part of the network and on the opposite of the Sun L5

On Earth

'457 KHz ELECTROMAGNETISM AND THE FUTURE OF AVALANCHE TRANSCEIVERS'

https://web.archive.org/web/20110722082 … re_000.pdf

Yagi–Uda antenna a directional antenna consisting of two or more parallel resonant antenna elements in an end-fire array


Some Basics of Very-Wide-Band Yagi Design
http://on5au.be/content/a10/vhf/ms1.html

New Open Access Research on the "Design and Experimental Demonstration of an Atmospheric Turbulence Simulation System for Free-Space Optical Communication" (Full-Text)
https://www.mdpi.com/2304-6732/11/4/334

Demo and Explanation on Laser Communications PwC
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6TA11Z3NJRI

"Tuning the parameters of a free-space optical channel using machine learning" (Paywalled) | Applied Optics Vol. 63, Issue 11 (3rd April 2024)
https://opg.optica.org/ao/abstract.cfm? … 63-11-2876

'How a Laser Works'
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oUEbMjtWc-A

Laser Communications: Empowering More Data Than Ever Before
https://www.nasa.gov/technology/laser-c … er-before/

Why Lasers?

As science instruments evolve to capture high-definition data like 4K video, missions will need expedited ways to transmit information to Earth. With laser communications, NASA can significantly accelerate the data transfer process and empower more discoveries.

Laser communications will enable 10 to 100 times more data transmitted back to Earth than current radio frequency systems. It would take roughly nine weeks to transmit a complete map of Mars back to Earth with current radio frequency systems. With lasers, it would take about nine days.


STEREO-A/B
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VzhMvEkK0gA

An above view of the Solar system with Ulysses and an orbit around the Sun that would take it past the Sun's north and south poles.
https://web.archive.org/web/20110817205 … index.html
Ulysses was a joint venture of the European Space Agency (ESA) and the United States' National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), under leadership of ESA with participation from Canada's National Research Council,  it explored both the southern and northern polar regions of the Sun, respectively.

German companies have demonstrated Wavelength Division Multiplexing (WDM) on Optical Communication Terminals (OCT): ESA project has been completed by SpaceTech, Tesat-Spacecom and Ferdinand-Braun-Institut
https://connectivity.esa.int/projects/wdm-oct


Chinese researchers have developed an all-light communication network that enables seamless connectivity across space, air and underwater environments - Photonics Spectra
https://www.photonics.com/Articles/All- … /p5/a69787


Mars might have a number of Trojans or Lagrange point asteroids, such as 5261 Eureka


How A Cat Became The Star Of The First Ultra HD Video Sent From Space
https://www.slashgear.com/1542665/tater … rom-space/

Last edited by Mars_B4_Moon (2024-04-13 04:08:04)

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