[JRandomFreeper]

I thought the Odyssey was for visual confirmation. Radio confirmation should happen pretty close to light-speed delay.

/johnny

[tennmountainman]

It may be that because the Rover will be landing in a deep crater and the Earth will be setting on Mars, a direct link
will not be possible, thus using Odyssey as a relay link.

You can watch the news conference at ustream.com.
They talked about Odyssey, but never mentioned a Direct link
from the Rover to earth.

[tennmountainman]

Actually, they said if the “roll” of Odyssey was sucessful,
Odyssey would be able to film the landing. I read in another
article that Odyssey had a part go down several weeks ago, they tried to use a backup on a test Roll and Odyssey went
into safe Mode.
I think on the first pass of Odyssey, they want to try to capture the entire 7 Minute landing on camera, thus the “Roll”.
If that doesn’t work, they said that Odyssey would pass over
again with-in 2 Hours and be able to communicate with the rover, to confirm landing, and relay that to earth.
They said it could take up to 2 hours to confirm landing
on Mars.