We’ve yet to find any definitive evidence that there’s biological life on present-day Mars, but to say it’s a dead planet isn’t exactly accurate. Since the first Viking lander touched down in 1976, a revolving cast of humanity’s robotic envoys have worked on and around the Red Planet — and as access to space becomes cheaper and more routine, the mechatronic population of Mars will continue to grow.

Given the number of landers, rovers, and orbiting spacecraft that have been sent to study Mars over the last 50 years, you might be surprised to find that the communications systems in place to transmit all that critical scientific data back to Earth aren’t nearly as robust as you’d think. While it’s understandable that the first craft to arrive at Mars had to operate in isolation, even the flagship Perseverance and Curiosity rovers carry their own high-gain radio systems so they can communicate directly with Earth. Given the incredible premium put on the mass of an interplanetary craft, each mission that needs to bring along its own link back to Earth effectively reduces its payload of much scientific equipment.

It’s not that satellites in orbit around the planet aren’t used to relay signals between Martian ground assets and their controllers back on Earth. In fact these relay links are used extensively for bandwidth-intensive tasks such as image transfers. But it’s also true that the craft currently available to act as intermediaries between the two planets aren’t terribly well suited to the task. The current fleet of Mars orbiters were conceived primary as research vehicles, and so every decision regarding their design and positioning around the planet was made with that goal in mind. What relatively limited capability they do have as communication relays is further hindered by the age of their hardware.

But after decades of false starts and shifting budgets, NASA is closer than ever to finally establishing the Mars Telecommunications Network, a dedicated high-bandwidth communication relay that will ensure current and future missions always have a way to phone home.

The Fragile Mars Relay Network

Mars Odyssey, Mars Express, the ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter, and the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter currently make up what’s known as the Mars Relay Network (MRN). The Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution (MAVEN) spacecraft was also part of the MRN, but communication was lost with the vehicle in December of 2025 and as of this summer NASA officially declared the mission over.

The MRN has been absolutely invaluable for many high profile missions, and there’s an excellent chance nearly every picture you’ve ever seen of the Martian surface was at one point routed through it on its way back to Earth. But for the spacecraft that comprise the MRN, shuttling bits across the black is more of a part-time job. Their individual primary missions are scientific in nature, and it shows.

Consider the Mars Express. Launched by the European Space Agency in 2003, it’s primary mission goals included releasing a small rover, analyzing the Martian atmosphere, and studying the planet’s closest moon, Phobos. To accomplish these tasks and to reduce the amount of propellant needed, the ESA put Mars Express into a highly elliptical orbit that sees the spacecraft swoop down to within 300 kilometers (185 miles) of the surface before heading back out to a distance of 10,000 km (6200 miles). Unfortunately, the rotation of Mars in combination with this exaggerated orbit means that rovers on the surface can’t maintain a consistent link to the vehicle, and as such its usefulness as a communications relay is limited to relatively narrow windows.

But in 2026, the real problem with the MRN is how old its constituent members are. MAVEN had already been flying for 12 years when it went offline, but that’s nothing compared to its peers. Mars Express has been on the job for 23 years, while Mars Odyssey has been in orbit for an incredible 25 years. Even the baby of the group, ESA’s ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter, was launched over a decade ago.

Those are very impressive durations for missions of this type, so much so that Mars Express and Mars Odyssey are the two oldest operational spacecraft in orbit around a planet other than Earth. While their continued operation is a testament to the engineering that went into them, the Mars Relay Network has more than earned its retirement.

An Overdue Upgrade

Given their age, it’s not as if there’s any disagreement about whether or not the spacecraft of the MRN are due for a replacement. Similarly, few would deny the operational benefit of a dedicated communications relay in orbit over Mars. Unsurprisingly, discussions on both points have been going on since the early 2000s.

NASA’s original plan for what they called the Mars Telecommunications Orbiter (MTO) would have put the spacecraft in orbit around the Red Planet back in 2010. The design concept for the vehicle called for two X-band transmitters and two Ka-band radios, in addition to an experimental laser communication system that could return data to Earth at an unprecedented rate.

Unfortunately, the MTO concept was cancelled just a few years after its inception as NASA needed to allocate the money towards other missions such as the final servicing mission for Hubble and the then in development Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) mission which would go on to deliver Curiosity to the surface in 2012.

The general idea has been floating around ever since, being reintroduced in budget discussions every few years. Each proposal has failed to gain the necessary support, in part due to the vague nature of the mission. Usually when NASA or the ESA spends hundreds of millions of dollars to send a spacecraft to Mars, it has a long list of science objectives to justify the price tag. But a communications relay that carries few if any secondary science payloads is a harder sell.

Sample Return Consolation Prize

Given all the false starts the project has had over the last two decades, it’s somewhat ironic that the only reason the space agency is able to allocate significant funds for the mission now is because of the collapse of the Mars Sample Return (MSR) initiative. A budget reconciliation package passed by Congress in July of 2025 allocated $700 million to revive the Mars Telecommunications Orbiter program, but stipulated it had to be built by one of the commercial companies that had contributed towards the MSR mission, and that it should be ready to launch by 2028.

In May of this year NASA put out a request for proposals to build what it was now calling the Mars Telecommunications Orbiter (MTN), and earlier this month they awarded Blue Origin with a fixed-price contract to develop, build, launch, and operate the spacecraft.

As with previous incarnations of the MTO, Blue Origin’s spacecraft will provide a high-bandwidth link back to Earth which can be utilized by multiple current and future Mars missions. The vehicle itself will feature a number of ports which can mount scientific instruments, deployable sub-relays, or potentially even a lander. Technically the contract only requires that the orbiter be capable of carrying a 20 kilogram science payload, but presumably Blue Origin has expanded on that idea so they can offer Martian “rideshare” opportunities for other companies while still achieving NASA’s stated design requirements.

Given how quickly all of this is coming together, there’s still not a lot of public information on Blue Origin’s spacecraft. But  we can glean a few interesting technical details from NASA’s original proposal request, such as the requirement that the relay must offer at least one terabyte of non-volatile store-and-forward capability, and should be able to achieve a 150 Mbps link from Mars to Earth.

Interestingly, despite the impressive demonstration of the Artemis II Optical Communications System (O2O) earlier this year, NASA specifically noted that support for optical communication was not a requirement of the Mars Telecommunications Network contract — though it would consider the feature a bonus should it be included.

Not Everyone is Happy

With the funds guaranteed by federal mandate and a contractor already building hardware, it seems like the Mars Telecommunications Orbiter is now closer to reality than ever before. But of course, nothing is ever truly guaranteed when it comes to space. Production runs into snags, bugs are discovered in software, and occasionally rockets explode on the launchpad. In addition to this general uncertainty, the revived Mars Telecommunications Orbiter will also have to contend with politics.

Since the announcement that Blue Origin was selected for the MTN contract, Rocket Lab filed a formal protest with the Government Accountability Office. They claim that design presented by Blue Origin is “inconsistent with the eligibility criteria mandated by Congress” and that NASA made incorrect assertions about RocketLab’s own proposal.

Because Rocket Lab is protesting the decision, both NASA and Blue Origin must legally stop all work on the MTN project until the Government Accountability Office can review the selection process and make their determination. This process can last up to 100 days, meaning there might not be a ruling until the end of the year.

Under normal circumstances this might simply be a bureaucratic annoyance, but when it comes to a mission that needs to leave Earth during the periodic Mars launch windows that only come around every 26 months, a lengthy delay could ultimately push the project into the next decade.