The newest node in NASA’s Mars telecommunications network — a radio aboard the MAVEN orbiter custom-designed for data links with robots on the surface of Mars — handled a copious 550 megabits during its first relay of real Mars data. MAVEN’s Electra UHF radio received the transmission from NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover on Nov. 6, using an adaptive data rate as the orbiter passed through the sky over the rover… [More at link]