Yes. I think the Voyager 1 transmitter power is around a mere 22 Watts and its downlink bit rate is about 160bps. The Mars Reconnaisance Orbiter is around 100 Watts and its downlink bit rate is about 6Mbps. There are many other variables needed to be taken into account in order to make comms with remote probes feasible, not the least of which is the size of the spacecraft antenna (and the receiving earth station antenna size).What amazes me is that the signal is strong enough for the radio stations to be able to pick it up. They're supposed to be around 18 billion kilometres away.
I lifted this off the following site - How Does NASA Communicate With Spacecraft? | NASA Space Place – NASA Science for Kids
Based on Voyager's comms link design, I once calculated that the needed Earth Station antenna size to receive messages from a Voyager type spacecraft at a paltry 1 light year distant from Earth(!), would require an effective earth station antenna size of 50kms in diameter!
Upvote
0