The European interplanetary space station Mars Express, launched in 2003, yesterday, June 2, on the occasion of its 20th anniversary, conducted the first of its kind live broadcast from the vicinity of Mars to Earth.
However, the broadcast was intermittently interrupted by rain on Earth in Spain, according to Phys.org.
Due to the long distance – approximately 300 million km – it took almost 17 minutes for each image to reach the Earth, and another minute to pass through ground stations.
The transmission was sometimes interrupted due to rainy weather on the antenna of a space relay in Spain, the newspaper notes. “Nevertheless, there were enough images to please European space officials who were doing an hour-long live broadcast.
Initial images showed about one-third of Mars gradually zooming in on the frames and then zooming out again as the spacecraft orbited the planet. White clouds were clearly visible in some pictures.
If you were sitting aboard Mars Express right now… this is what you would see,” said Simon Wood, Space Station Operations Engineer. “Usually we don’t get images this way.
Images and other data are usually stored on board the station and then transmitted to Earth when the spacecraft’s antenna can be pointed in the following way, he said.
The European Space Agency (ESA) notes that almost real-time footage of this broadcast from such a distance is quite rare. So, more than half a century ago, there were live broadcasts from Miyatsi as part of the Apollo program, and recently, fragments of a live broadcast from spacecraft that deliberately crashed into the Moon and an asteroid.
All of these missions were fairly close to home, and others that were farther away sent perhaps one or two near-real-time images. When it comes to a long live broadcast from deep space, this is the first time, the ESA said in a related statement.
Source: Phys.org
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I am David Wyatt, a professional writer and journalist for Buna Times. I specialize in the world section of news coverage, where I bring to light stories and issues that affect us globally. As a graduate of Journalism, I have always had the passion to spread knowledge through writing.