The Curiosity and Perseverance rovers have high gain antenna arrays on a mechanical arm that can rise up and point towards Earth and communicate directly.
- Has the Curiosity rover ever communicated directly with Earth via its high-gain antenna? Signal strength & data rate?
- How does Curiosity know how to point and move it's high gain antenna in real time? (see images and plots)
- What is a gyrocompass and how might one be used by a planetary rover?
It uses various sensors and data to get its orientation and position on Mars, along with a real time clock and ephemeris to calculate the pointing vector for the antenna and continue to track the Earth during the link.
But in all the selfie images of these rovers that I've seen so far the high gain antenna seems to be down and locked in a storage position, though I'm not sure of that. So I'd like to ask:
Question: Are there any selfies of Curiosity or Perseverance with their high gain antenna deployed and "looking up" in a specific direction?
