In order to prepare for manned missions to other planets, it is necessary to monitor permanently the surface environment and have a clear notion of its conditions.

Hundreds or thousands of small wireless sensors could be dropped from a satellite orbiting the planet onto the surface to assure a uniform and sufficient coverage. These autonomous sensors would then create their own ad hoc network while some of them, equipped with satellite communication capabilities, would establish a link between the WSN and the satellite. Data gathered from the sensors would be processed and sent to the satellite and later to Earth.

SWIPE (Space WIreless sensor networks for Planetary Exploration) is a EU FP7-SPA project, under grant agreement no. 312826.