Do. 1  Do spend some time understanding the point of what you are about to write. 2  Do make lists. 3  Do use an appropriate tone. 4  Do write several drafts of each paragraph. 5  Do compare your first draft copy with other material from previous issues of the journal or website.
Mars is so far away in fact that it takes radio signals quite a long time to get from the spacecraft back to Earth. During Curiosity EDL, this delay will be 13 minutes, 48 seconds, about mid-way between the minimum delay of around 4 minutes and the maximum of around 24 minutes.
Given that the signal will travel at the speed of light, we can work out the time depending on the distance between Mars & Earth (obviously varying as the two planets orbit the sun). Note that to receive and send back data to a rover, you need to account for a round trip - worst case around 45 minutes. Also, the Earth will not always be visible from every point on Mars (the earth could be behind the horizon), so a large amount of there won't be line-of-sight at all.