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ESA Livestreams Mars Footage Directly from Red Planet
For the past 20 years, the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Mars Express has been orbiting the Red Planet and sending back precious data that reveal the Martian landscape. Our views of Mars, however, have always suffered from a technical delay, taking hours or sometimes days to transmit their way back to Earth. That’s set to change with the first Martian livestream beamed directly from the red planet.
Mars Webcam to Livestream Images
On Friday, ESA will stream a live feed of images taken by Mars Express to celebrate the orbiter’s anniversary, the space agency announced this week. The images will be beamed directly from the spacecraft’s Visual Monitoring Camera (VMC), also known as the Mars Webcam, and a new image will be shown roughly every 50 seconds for the full duration of the hour-long event.
Stream Details and Viewing Options
The livestream is scheduled to begin on June 2 at 12:00 p.m. ET. You can tune in to the Martian livestream through ESA’s YouTube Channel or through the feed on the article page.
A Brief History of the Mars Webcam
The Mars Webcam was originally designed for one task: monitor the separation of the Beagle 2 lander from the Mars Express spacecraft. After it delivered its initial set of data, the Mars Webcam was turned off. Around four years later, however, the camera was turned back on initially for outreach activities, but later repurposed as a science instrument on its own. “We developed new, more sophisticated methods of operations and image processing, to get better results from the camera, turning it into Mars Express’s 8th science instrument,” Jorge Hernández Bernal, part of the VMC team, said in the ESA statement.
Martian Images and Transmission Time
Images of Mars taken by the camera are stored on board the spacecraft and downlinked to mission control as a batch every couple of days. Afterwards, they are processed and made available for viewing. This is quite typical for most spacecraft since most data collection tends to take place when they are not in direct contact with a ground station antenna on Earth. The spacecraft could either be on the other side of Mars or the Sun, or their antennas could be facing away from Earth, according to ESA.
That’s why whenever we see an image of a celestial body, it doesn’t really reflect what it looks like at this very moment. Instead of an Instagram Live, we typically get a “late gram” or one of those photo dumps that show highlights taken weeks ago.
During Friday’s one-hour livestream, however, we’ll be treated to images taken from Mars’ orbit just 18 minutes before they appear on our screens. That’s how long it takes the signal to travel from Mars to Earth, in addition to an extra minute for the data to go through wires and servers on the ground.
Possible Issues with the Livestream
ESA added a disclaimer in their announcement that this has never been done before, therefore the timing may be a bit off, if it even works at all. “This is an old camera, originally planned for engineering purposes, at a distance of almost three million kilometers from Earth—this hasn’t been tried before and to be honest, we’re not 100% certain it’ll work,” James Godfrey, spacecraft operations manager at ESA’s mission control centre in Darmstadt, Germany, said in the statement. “But I’m pretty optimistic.”
Conclusion
ESA’s livestream of video footage from Mars will be a historic event that will bring us closer to the Red Planet in real-time. This livestream event is a part of a series of events by ESA to celebrate Mars Express’ 20-year anniversary. Viewers can expect to see images taken from Mars orbit just 18 minutes before they appear on screens, rather than seeing a photo dump taken weeks ago. This unprecedented event might face some challenges, but it holds great promise for the future of live Martian broadcasts.
FAQs
What is the significance of this livestream from the Red Planet?
ESA’s first Martian livestream event will allow us to view images from Mars that were taken just 18 minutes before they appear on screens, instead of seeing a photo dump taken weeks ago.
What will the livestream show?
Viewers can expect to see images taken by the Visual Monitoring Camera (VMC), also known as the Mars Webcam, which is a science instrument on the Mars Express spacecraft. The livestream will show new images roughly every 50 seconds for the full duration of an hour.
When will the livestream take place?
The livestream is scheduled to begin on June 2 at 12:00 p.m. ET.
How can I watch the livestream?
You can tune in to the Martian livestream through ESA’s YouTube Channel or through the feed on the article page.
What are the possible issues with the livestream?
ESA stated that this has never been done before, so timing may be a bit off, if it even works at all. James Godfrey, spacecraft operations manager at ESA’s mission control centre in Darmstadt, Germany said, “This is an old camera, originally planned for engineering purposes, at a distance of almost three million kilometers from Earth—this hasn’t been tried before and, to be honest, we’re not 100% certain it’ll work.”
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