NASA is about to finalize the contract with Lockheed Martin to design and build the Mars Telecommunications Orbiter, complete with laser communications and rendevous experiments.

LINK

Interestingly, MTO is expected to be based on MRO. Sounds like a good idea to save costs.

2009 still the launch target. Given the doubts about 2009 for MSL, I wonder if there will be anything for it to talk to when it gets there? Will Phoenix last that long?

Even if there isn't anything left for it to talk to, it's an excellent idea to launch MTO to Mars in the window 2 years BEFORE MSL. MSL is extremely dependent on MTO to return most of its science data -- the rover won't even have any direct-to-Earth radio link! So if the first MTO fails and MSL is launched simultaneously, it will Up That Creek. On the other hand, we could build the second MTO as an emergency backup and launch it in 2011 (along with MSL) if MTO-1 fails after its 2009 launch. (Otherwise we could just leave MTO-2 in storage until we do need it -- which, if things go as planned, won't be until 2018.)

From what I hear, Phoenix will probably be relatively short-lived. It has a 90 day primary mission, and might last more months, but as winter comes, its power levels from solar panels being that far North will become so bad that it will end the mission....that is, unless they can wake it up in the spring, which is unlikely but not impossible.

It would be good to have MTO in situ before sending a spacecraft that actually will depend on it - simply so they can do end-to-end UHF checks on it (using Stanford, or perhaps even Odyssey )

Doug