Future Mars missions will require effective surface com-munications network supporting exploration activities andscienti®c ®eld data collection. In order to meet the needfor future Mars exploration missions, NASA has come upwith various proximity networks. These proximity networkare relatively small, fairly short-range, often ad hoc, wire-less network typically dedicated to tasks such as transport-ing in site sensing data. This paper enlist the challenges inthese proximity networks in general. We describe proxim-ity network architecture with repeaters to increase the com-munication range of the Mars exploration rovers. We alsodescribe the Mars reply protocol which make the networkautonomous than remotely operated from Earth.In order to achieve data delivery in such challenging net-working environments, researchers have proposed the useof store-carry-and-forward protocols. However, the buffersize in proximity network nodes (Mars rover for example)are unavoidably limited. Thus, ef®cient buffer managementpolicies are necessary to decide which messages should bediscarded, when node buffers are operated close to theircapacity. In this paper, we have proposed buffer manage-ment policy for image data traf®c. Using simulation wehave shown that our buffer management policy providedoptimal delivery ratio in all scenario when compared withother policies.