The telecommunications systems of Mars orbiters provide a crucial service for spacecraft on the Red Planet. The Network serves as the first link in a communications bridge back to Earth, an "interplanetary Internet" that will continue to be used by numerous international spacecraft in coming years.

On a routine basis, landers and rovers on the surface of Mars can send commands and telemetry to and from Earth, but the enormous volume of science data gathered by the spacecraft would take an extremely long time to transmit directly. As a result, most of that science data is sent up to spacecraft orbiting overhead, through the Mars Relay Network. The network includes NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, Mars Odyssey, and MAVEN, and two European Space Agency missions, Trace Gas Orbiter and Mars Express. They capture data from NASA's Perseverance and Curiosity rover.