NASA is changing its approach to interplanetary communications: instead of building and maintaining its own orbital relay stations, the agency plans to buy communications services as a service. This decision has already started a real race among the big players in the space industry for the right to create a "highway" between Earth and Mars, TechCrunch reports.
Currently, Mars information is transmitted via spacecraft such as the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter and MAVEN, which relay data from rovers and landers to the Deep Space Network (DSN) antennas on the ground. Although these orbiters are still operational, they were not designed for continuous operation and will eventually fail.
NASA plans to upgrade its aging infrastructure by combining its own resources with commercial systems. In July 2025, the agency announced a call for proposals to explore architectures that would provide continuous communication between the Earth and the Moon, as well as a channel from the surface of Mars to control centers on Earth.
Among the companies that have already presented their concepts are Blue Origin with its Mars Telecommunications Orbiter based on the Blue Ring platform, Rocket Lab with its Martian Orbital Telecommunications System, and SpaceX, which plans to use Starlink technologies for interplanetary communication.
The main goal is to create an infrastructure that will allow the transition from scientific missions to a permanent human presence on the Moon and Mars.