The first thing controllers hope to hear as the earliest of three Mars probes touches down on the Red Planet on Christmas day is a nine-tone ditty by the British rock band, Blur. From that point on, Mars will only get noisier. If all goes to plan, three probes will be exploring Mars’ surface by the end of January and relaying everything they learn back to Earth directly or by way of two orbiters that are now zipping around the planet. NASA is bracing for the communications crunch.