Communication Delays, Disruptions, and Blackouts for Crewed Mars Missions

As NASA continues to develop the Moon2Mars campaign, there are a number of challenges that must be addressed to execute a successful crewed mission to Mars. One of those challenges is delays, disruptions, and blackouts that crew will experience during their mission to Mars, and that is the challenge evaluated in this paper. Our analysis showed that communication delays will vary from 0 to 22 minutes over the course of a mission, peaking while the crew is at or just departed from Mars. The disruptions occur in a similar time frame and can last for several days up to several months, depending on the solar disturbance sensitivity of the communication band being used. The delays and disruptions will have an impact on crewed Mars missions, and determining mitigations is future work to be informed by this analysis.