24/7 surveillance is old tech, so why not on space missions?

bonzelite · Mar 25, 2006

this is bugging me (to make a pun). we've had off-the-shelf video surveillance technology, in miniature, for decades. so why has this valuable tool been absent on EVERY space probe sent to the planets? and, being the technology has been around for YEARS, why has a super-feed super phat ethernet T1-style satellite system orbiting the planets not been implemented sooner? we've had this for years on earth. never has the time been more ripe in this new age of frequent probing of mars and beyond. we'd INSTANTLY KNOW the truth with well-planned and well-placed live tv stations feeding back to earth around the clock. gullys, dirt devils, possible lightning strikes to the ground, discreet and subtle movements of sand and dust --all captured in real-time would be IMMEDIATELY PROVING, or at least extremely valuable, to explaining various phenomena. wots, uh, the deal? why this neglect? and why is this seldom, or never, proposed in upcoming missions? it is never talked about. or is it? anybody know about this?

thepiper · Mar 26, 2006

Probably for the same reason the probes mapping Mars and exploring the outer planets have cameras with less resolution than commercial mapping satellites? You can see bicycles on Google maps and I am sure military satellites have much better resolution but we were stuck with pretty low-res images of large features on Mars. I hope the new HiRise camera will finally give us better images.

qso1 · Mar 26, 2006

Part of the problem is that development times on space probes lag commercial tech. Imaging systems on Cassini for example were state of the art probably 15 years ago or around 1990. The development cycle would freeze the design of the imaging system well before Cassini's launch (October 1997). When Cassini arrived at Saturn in 2004, its late 1980s early 1990s state of the art system was the best that could be done. Its almost the same type of problem we would face with communication lags with potential SETI targets. These imaging systems have to work in an integrated fashion with space probe communication systems and science instruments etc. In addition, the severely limited power of most unmanned probes puts a limit on how much image data can be transmitted at a time which tends to limit the quality of the data. Mars probes have shown improvements in imaging because as each new probe comes online, the associated imaging systems come on line as well. Mars being relatively close helps as well. Were probably still a few years from live imaging capability at Mars. We don't even have that with commercial earth orbiting imaging systems such as those employed by "Sightseebyspace.com". Live imaging requires enormous amounts of image data processing. Imaging systems on unmanned probes also compete for space with other scientific instruments. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> My borrowed quote for the time being:There are three kinds of people in life. Those who make it happen, those who watch it happen...and those who do not know what happened. </div>

bonzelite · Mar 26, 2006

i'm talking about not only orbital platforms. i'm talking about landers. the Viking lander, for example, could have carried such a device. but it did not. it could have provided real-time streaming video, even at the level of technology in 1976, would have been invaluable and may have advanced knowledge 30 years ahead in only a few weeks. the MERs could have had mini-tv cams streaming video 24/7. with all of the events captured in still images, seeing them unfold in real time would shed tremendous light on how things happen and evolve. some of the "mysterious" movements of sand and particles captured in time-lapsed still images would have immediate viewing in real-time and the mechanisms for surface movements and transport of materials would have been nearly instantly known. but nope. they'd rather play this drawn-out charade.

qso1 · Mar 26, 2006

I agree with what such imaging systems could do for our knowledge base. Especially what your saying in regards to observing the mechanisms for material movements on the surface and so on. I don't think Viking could have had real time systems simply because of the data requirements. Transmitting real time data such as images would be at a rate of at least 1Mb/sec. If a hard drive were required for say, storing data for when Viking would be out of communications with its orbiter. Such a drive (1971-72 state of the art) would have been enormous, too large for Viking. I seem to recall drives the size of washing machines that stored 20 Mb data somewhere around that time. Not to mention, mini cams were not available then. Nobody would have seriously considered real time systems for Viking because of the technical hurdles present then. Today, the possibility of real time systems are much closer, especially on orbiting craft that can be tailored largely for imaging. Surface craft would be tailored for science which includes but could not be limited to imaging. I don't think its necessarily a charade, science and technology by its very nature is incremental. Maybe nobody even thought about putting minicams on spacecraft although I think this is unlikely. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> My borrowed quote for the time being:There are three kinds of people in life. Those who make it happen, those who watch it happen...and those who do not know what happened. </div>

tomnackid · Mar 27, 2006

A little matter called "bandwidth". A "real time" video signal usually means about 30 frames per second. That is a whole lot of info to try and transmit from the tiny antenna on a space probe across the the solar system to a receiver on Earth. Usually its considered a big waste of limited time and electricity to send full motion video of stationary rocks and hills. Far more data can be obtained with the same amount of bandwidth by sending high resolution still pictures. Geologists can learn a lot more from a hi res close-up of a rock than from a fuzzy, full motion TV image. The moon landing however were fully televised since people understandably wanted to see what was happening while it was happening. I think there was some resistance on the part of NASA to implement the TV feed since they considered it to have no scientific value. In addition to on-site inspections and actual samples, the astronauts would be bringing back high resolution, medium format film images of anything interesting. Ans as far as keeping tabs on the astronauts health and safety NASA has a plethora of sensor far more useful than video literally coming out the astronauts buts! Galileo was supposed to have a high frame rate video link to take video of Jupiter's atmosphere. To accomplish this it needed a powerful nulcear thermal generator (NTG) and a large, folding parabolic antenna. unfortunately the antenna jammed and the high speed data link was lost. I have no doubt that as the exploration of Mars progresses and the basic geology becomes clearer we will move on to studying wind patterns and dust movements (A lot of that has already been done by orbiting probes and even Earth-based tlescopes by the way.) More powerful energy sources and larger antennas will also make live video more practical. I'm sure we will be watching the first humans set foot on Mars live and in color--probably even high definition.

CalliArcale · Mar 27, 2006

Yep. Bandwidth is the killer. A lot of folks don't realize this, but MGS already has resolution equivalent to what you can get off Google Maps, when conditions are favorable. MRO will greatly exceed that once it gets down to its mapping orbit. But it still won't come live 24/7 because there just isn't the bandwidth to downlink those phenomenal pictures that quickly. Heck, you can't get live Google Maps pictures. Even if you were willing to pay for it, you couldn't get it. Heck, I'm confident that even the NSA doesn't have live satellite pictures from low Earth orbit. There are a lot more considerations than most people think about when it comes to satellite communications, and even more with deep space satellites. There has been a recent breakthrough in optical transmissions which, if it becomes practical (which I expect would take another ten years at least), would revolutionize the bandwidth for deep space probes. When that day comes, we just might get real-time images. Today, there just isn't the bandwidth unless you're willing to settle for extremely crappy images. Of course, there still will be limitations. One is that most probes cannot take pictures and transmit to Earth at the same time. Mapping spacecraft in particular must slew in a very specific way in order to take the image without smearing it. This makes it impossible to point the antenna at Earth at the same time. That simple fact of geometry makes it impossible no matter what the bandwidth. (The exception is if they have an adequately flexible scan platform for their cameras, such as Voyager had. The drawback is that these scan platforms represent several points of failure which could doom the mission. Engineers tend to favor simpler and more rugged solutions.) BTW, Galileo never was intended to have a live data link. It would've had vastly more bandwidth had that antenna opened, but it still would not have been enough to permit live transmission o <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> "People assume that time is a strict progression of cause to effect, but actually from a non-linear, non-subjective viewpoint it's more like a big ball of wibbly wobbly . . . timey wimey . . . stuff." -- The Tenth Doctor, "Blink" </div>

bonzelite · Mar 28, 2006

the technology to create a satellite tv network around the earth has existed for decades and is only easier to do. virtually all telecom and broadcast services of any type are in some way connected to a satellite network. this could be done at mars as it has been done on the earth. bandwidth would be a non-factor. it would only matter insofar as the time-delay of broadcast. remote cameras can be placed in myriad locales on the surface, too, giving streaming video. a network specifically designed for this purpose could be in place with pre-existng technology. a satellite array could be designed and sent to mars for insertion into orbit piece by piece. exactly as it is done on the earth. such a system would accelerate learning about mars ahead exponentially. already discovered areas of recent gully formations could be staked out with tv cameras for years. the guessing would vanish when the moment of truth unfolded on live tv. the possibilities are endless. the truth about the gullys, for example, will NEVER be determined by debates and endless reams of "data" that can be interpreted in a thousand ways. we need to see it literally. why this is never discussed in press-releases or ever in JPL or NASA panel interviews, et al, is beyond my understanding and is sinfully negligent. if such planning has been publicallly known, then excuse my rant.

tomnackid · Mar 28, 2006

The matter has been adequately explained. Its not our fault that you seem unwilling to understanding the basic technical principals of video imaging and transmission and deep space communications networks. But I should have remembered that this is "phenomena" so the reason there are no 24/7 live feeds on space probes MUST be do to some conspiracy by the the "mainstream" science authorities. How many comsats would be in Mars orbit? How big would they be? How would you get them to Mars? How many cameras? On the ground? In space? How would you decide where to put them? Would each comsat broadcast directly to an Earth based deep space tracking network or would they all relay to one big transmitter? How is all of this data going to be stored? Will it be stored on the Mars com-stats and transmitted when alignments are favorable? Will it be transmitted continuously? If so then what kind of network do you need on Earth to pick up all of it? How many people do you expect to employ to analyze all of this data--99.9 percent of which will just be empty landscapes? Most of all how much time and money has gone into building Earth's communications networks? Over a century and billions of dollars would be a conservative estimate. Is someone going to do that at Mars just so you can see if gigantic, physics-defying lighting bolts are digging gullies and craters on Mars? PS: Sorry, I didn't mean to imply that the Galileo images would be real time video--just high frame rate video. The point I was trying to get across was that even high frame rate video is a fairly complex, nevermind streaming full motion video.

starbasher5 · Mar 28, 2006

You bring up very good points. I never thought about it myself and now, I am wondering why that hasn't been done before.

bonzelite · Mar 28, 2006

The matter has been adequately explained. Its not our fault that you seem unwilling to understanding the basic technical principals of video imaging and transmission and deep space communications networks. But I should have remembered that this is "phenomena" so the reason there are no 24/7 live feeds on space probes MUST be do to some conspiracy by the the "mainstream" science authorities. <img src="/images/icons/rolleyes.gif" /> poor tom. PS: Sorry, I didn't mean to imply that the Galileo images would be real time video--just high frame rate video. The point I was trying to get across was that even high frame rate video is a fairly complex, nevermind streaming full motion video. it's not any more complex than pre-existing television broadcast. this stuff has existed for years. you'd place the network into martian orbit with a series of payloads over several years, replete with mini landers and an array of rovers that are cameras, literally bugs, crawling to locales on the surface. this is fully do-able. an MRO type of orbiter would be a great first step as an uplink platform for live tv feed. this has been done hundredes of times over on earth. you'd set up, literally, a MarsTV station on the earth to receive broadcasts. your negative "failure" attitude, replete with the biting sarcasm, is entirely un-necessary. a Mars LiveTV "MLTV" could be done. it would not take "a century" if it were a focused and concerted effort. this is not some mission to go find bigfoot or lightning bolts. what the hell gave you that idea? this is to discover just what is really going on. to end the debating over the basics and open up new avenues, finally.

JonClarke · Mar 29, 2006

As others have pointed out, it is technically very difficult to provide 24/7 coverage for Mars. You need a fair bit of power, large bandwidth, and large antennae of a specific size. Given the fact that mass, fiscal and power budgets of all spacecraft are limited, you would sacrifice a lot of other capacity to do this. We don't even have this capcity for earth. Earth observation satellites make repeated passes of specific areas of the the planet and image targets as they do. But it is not continuous coverage. Even weather satellites in geostationary orbit don't continuously stream data, as you would from a sports event, but image many times during the day. So you need to specify why this such continuous data is a must have, rather than a nice to have for a specific mission, given the mass, fiscal, and power budget restrictions. Again as others have said, I can't see this happening until we have people on Mars, when the power, mass and budgetary constraints are much larger and where there is a real need. Even then you may well have 24/7 covereage only for limited types of data or for limited intervals, and certainly only for a limited part of the planet. Jon <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> Whether we become a multi-planet species with unlimited horizons, or are forever confined to Earth will be decided in the twenty-first century amid the vast plains, rugged canyons and lofty mountains of Mars Arthur Clarke </div>

bonzelite · Mar 29, 2006

there would be far more conclusive evidence provided for surface transport of materials. it would be known fairly soon how long it takes for certain features to take shape and nearly exactly how they came to be. many images of the surface over the past few years have shown clear weathering in timescales of only months, specifically gullys. this would be further enhanced by strategically placed arrays of video cameras mounted atop masts, with 360degree capability. there are myriad sites as candidate locales for continual surveillance. this would be an immense tool for all of the sciences conducted on other planets. particularly with mars. it may be months between recorded events, but once a golden moment unfolded, as in a gully event, we would be in shock and awe over how it came into being. we would nearly instantly know what process created the structure. and such a discovery could possibly then create a daisy-chained effect throughout the entire sphere of theoretical analysis of martian geology. one recorded event could change the entire field of planetary study overnight literally. tiny craters, gullys, dust storms, dirt devils, possible precipitation, cloud patterns and behaviours, dune formation, venting, steam, liquid, sand flows -- all could be seen. there may even be events completely and absolutely unknown to humanity that would be captured by this media. it is beyond a must have. it is a priori must have.

vogon13 · Mar 29, 2006

For an example, the cameras on Mariner 10 generated pictures 800 pixels square. The camera electronics generated a data stream of roughly a little over 100,000 bits per second as they digitized the camera image data. Digitizing the camera output in those days (early 1970s) took roughly 45 seconds per picture. (remember Moore's law for computers? Something similar applies to video information over time.) This data stream could be recorded on the on board data recorder at that rate. (pretty amazing for 1970s if you think about it, this was all done without microprocessors, which would not be flown until the Pioneer Venus craft almost 10 years later). Bruce Murray at JPL realized that if the communication system could be upgraded to handle the +100,000 bits per second data stream from the cameras directly, many more photographs could be returned by the spacecraft from Mercury. There is a relationship between the strength of the radio signal from a spacecraft, the frequency of the signal, the sizes of the transmitting and recieving antennas, the desired signal to noise ratio, the distance over which the signals must travel, any absorption of the signal by an atmosphere, and the sensitivity of the reciever electronics to the data rate you wish to transmit. Obviously, with several parameters like that, and serious constraints on the weight and power systems on the spacecraft, data rates from probes will be limited. Mariner 10 took advantage of several advances which are still in use today. The craft was able to transmit on X-band, the craft had a slightly larger antenna, the craft had a slight bump in power output, and on earth, the new ruby maser reciever technology was employed. Additionally, on Mariner 10, their was really only one instrument that required such a high data rate, the cameras. In the future, such instruments as radars, infrared imagers, and high resolution spectrometers would compete with the cameras for band <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> TPTB went to Dallas and all I got was Plucked !!So many people, so few recipes !!Let's clean up this stinkhole !! </div>

vogon13 · Mar 29, 2006

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- There is a relationship between the signal strength of the radio signal from a spacecraft, the frequency of the signal, the sizes of the transmitting and recieving antennas, the desired signal to noise ratio, the distance over which the signals must travel, any absorption of the signal by an atmosphere, and the sensitivity of the reciever electronics to the data rate you wish to transmit. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I find it laughable, (and at the same time disturbing) that folks ignorant of such basic relevant information on the topic on which they are bloviating and obfuscating are taken seriously by anyone, are allowed to post here, and don't realize how ignorant they appear to the folks who have bothered to look into the matter at hand. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> TPTB went to Dallas and all I got was Plucked !!So many people, so few recipes !!Let's clean up this stinkhole !! </div>

tomnackid · Mar 29, 2006

Ignoring goofy ideas like a 24 hour Mars Network anytime soon, we may actually see a Mars mission done for entertainment purposes for a profit. A few years ago I was at a meeting where a NASA scientist told me that he was approached by a big name film maker (he was asked not to give out the name, but one can probably come up with a few hollywood film makers who are obsessed with technology, exploration, adventure and are not averse to projects of "titanic" proportions <img src="/images/icons/wink.gif" /> ). Anyway this film maker wanted this scientist to calculate the cost of a private, unmanned Mars mission. After doing some research he came up with a number and gave it to the film maker. His response was "Damn! If we could get it to half that amount I could swing it." So who knows, conquering the solar system in the name of entertainment may not be far off!

nexium · Mar 29, 2006

A satellite uses perhaps 200 watts to send many channels of broadband data 36,000 kilometers. To send that data 180,000,000 kilometers from Mars requires 25 million times more power = square law. Can we send a 5 billion watt transmitter to Mars? Maybe never. Neil

bonzelite · Mar 30, 2006

I find it laughable, (and at the same time disturbing) that folks ignorant of such basic relevant information on the topic on which they are bloviating and obfuscating are taken seriously by anyone, are allowed to post here, and don't realize how ignorant they appear to the folks who have bothered to look into the matter at hand. so those who take the stance that something can be done, against opposition from all sides, are merely "bloviating" and "obfuscating." how many great ideas and potential innovations have died because of the statements, "we already tried that -- and it didn't work," or, "according to the 'rules,' that idea is impossible." people often "see what they're supposed to see" because of their rigid thinking according to "rules" of a field. you have no idea what can and cannot be done. you've barely looked into the matter. the seed of genius is imagination. not prior knowledge. the past is dead. many of the greatest ideas and innovations come from "outsiders," -- those who are not blinded with tunnel vision by existing paradigms. it is inevitable that a live TV station will exist on mars and it will be set up simultaneously with the first manned mission, at the very least. at best, it will transpire sooner in some form. once in place, it will revolutionize science off the planet. many will wonder why it was not put to task sooner, as it will provide real evidence for phenomena, ending many debates over what is "really" there. many court cases would have otherwise floundered or ended in technicalities had live video not been gathered at a crime scene. murderers, rapists, arsonists, who would have otherwise gotten off, have been convicted on such surveillence. we're going to convict the mysteries of mars.

JonClarke · Mar 30, 2006

OK, so you want evidence for surface transport of materials. An image every few days or weeks or even months would be OK for this. The Vikings did this, so did Pathfinder, for a shorter length of time. They need not be colour images either, simple panchromatic would be adequate. Specific meteorological, like clouds and dust storms might need hourly images, willy willies images a few minutes apart. Again, the rovers have done this for short periods of time. Other data you would want on an hour by hour data might include weather information, and radiation. Viking did this too. Maybe future probes will capture night time images - aurora, air glow, the zodical light, counter glow, and meteors. Seismic data would probably require essentially continuous transmission, or rather continuous collection and then rapid transmission to earth. Viking did this, or at least was intended to, the seismometers did not work well - one did not deploy and the other had wind interference. All of this points to a simple stationary probe. Rovers are much more active, requiring constant two way communications. They also have active geological and (on future machines) astrobiologial programs. They are not intended for long term monitoring (at least while still mobile). Jon <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> Whether we become a multi-planet species with unlimited horizons, or are forever confined to Earth will be decided in the twenty-first century amid the vast plains, rugged canyons and lofty mountains of Mars Arthur Clarke </div>

24/7 surveillance is old tech, so why not on space missions?

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