X band
On board the two CubeSats is an ultra-high frequency (UHF) antenna with circular polarization. EDL information from "InSight" was transmitted through the UHF band at 8 kbit/s to the CubeSats, and was simultaneously retransmitted at an X band frequency at 8 kbit/s to Earth. MarCO used a deployable solar panel for power, but because of the limitations in solar panel efficiency, the power for the X-band frequency can only be about 5 watts.