XLink-Ka at the forefront of innovation

„Exploring a valley and caves on Mars, searching for life“ with a robot swarm is the premise of the German Aerospace Centre’s (DLR) VaMEx initiative. The VaMEx3-MarsSymphony research project is part of the initiative and its task is to develop the communication concept of the robot swarm. The project is conducted by IQ spacecom and the Julius-Maximilians-Universität in Würzburg (GER), from August 2024 to August 2026.  

Inspired by NASA’s “Mariner” mission, which discovered the vast Valles Marineris canyon system in the 1970s, the VaMEx initiative is developing a robot swarm of intelligent, networked drones – including interconnected driving, walking and flying drones – to autonomously collect data across various Martian environments and, for the first time, also in caves on Mars. These drones will collect data independently that will be transferred through our communication system to a central gateway on the surface of Mars.

The communication will be like a „harmonic symphony“, hence the project’s name. This gateway, which will include an upgraded version of our XLink-Ka, will then transmit the cumulated data to an orbiter that will also have the XLink based Ka-Band transceiver on board. The Interagency Operation Advisory Group (IOAG), which includes NASA, DLR, ESA and others, recommended the use of the Ka-band for communications on Mars because of the high-speed data transmission this band offers. (The Future - Mars Communications Architecture, page 62 to 64, Link)

Participation in this project will give us the opportunity to fine-tune and test our upcoming XLink-Ka, expand it to be a full Ka-band transceiver, and add new features such as LDPC codes. The next step in this venture will be a field test in early July 2025.

We thank the Julius-Maximilians-Universität for the great cooperation in this exciting journey and are looking forward to insightful results.