A live video feed will be broadcast from Mars for the first time today at 16:00 UTC using a once-defunct camera aboard the European Space Agency’s Mars Express Orbiter.
The ESA feed embedded above lasts for an hour. However, the distance between Earth and Mars is so great that it takes 17 minutes for an image to reach us, plus another minute for it to pass through various receivers and servers on the ground, making it completely “live”. can’t say
of the orbiter visual surveillance camera (VMC) sends a new frame every 50 seconds. This is the first time ESA has attempted to stream images taken, as the camera typically stores the images it captures and sends them in batches every few days.
The event was held to mark the 20th anniversary of ESA’s Mars Express, which put the Mars Express Orbiter into orbit and deployed the ill-fated Beagle 2 lander.
Despite failing to communicate with Earth after Beagle 2 reached the surface, the spacecraft became Europe’s first mission to another planet and still operates in an elliptical orbit of about 300 to 10,000 kilometers. continuing.
ESA’s James Godfrey said in a statement There is no guarantee that the stream will proceed as planned. “This is an old camera, originally planned for engineering purposes, An experiment at about 3 million kilometers from Earth has never been attempted before, and to be honest, I’m not 100% sure it will work. “
The VMC was originally designed to monitor the separation of the Beagle 2 Lander and was turned off after launch. However, after more sophisticated image processing techniques were developed and the relatively simple camera became useful again, in 2007 it was put back into use for scientific and philanthropic reasons.
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