Will MSL have video?

[grooble]

Will the MSL rover record and transmit videos to earth, rather than just still pictures? It would be far more engaging if we could see videos of the rover moving across the surface, the tools doing things, maybe videos capturing dust storms and looking at the night sky from the surface of Mars.

 

[Philotas]

Actually it will send home videos; and of good quality too.<br /><br /><font color="yellow">"Mars Science Laboratory Mast Camera: Performs multi-spectral, stereo imaging at lengths ranging from kilometers to centimeters, and can acquire compressed high-definition video at 10 frames per second without the use of the rover computer. PI, Michael Malin, Malin Space Science Systems, San Diego, California."</font><br /><br />http://www.space.com/businesstechnology/technology/mars_science_lab_050105.html (scroll down to end of article)<br /><br /><font color="yellow">"Each Mast Camera can acquire high-definition video. The illustration, below, compares the CCD array used in the MER Pancam with the CCD array to be used for MastCam. The MER CCD was 1024 by 1024 pixels in dimension. The MastCam CCD has 1600 by 1200 pixels. For regular "still" frames, 1200 by 1200 of the pixels are used, resulting in an image with a larger format than Pancam. For the video, 1280 by 720 pixels are used. With two cameras, it will be possible to obtain high-definition stereo (3-d) video products".</font><br /><br />http://www.msss.com/msl/mastcam/MastCam_description.html<br /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[grooble]

Excellent. Personally i am also looking forward to the kind of footage we'll get from the next moon landings, with all of the modern digital technology.

 

[tomnackid]

"Excellent. Personally i am also looking forward to the kind of footage we'll get from the next moon landings, with all of the modern digital technology."<br />---------------------------------------------------------------------<br />Don't let the "Apollo Hoax" people over on Phenomena her you say that! They'll say the digital imaging will make it even easier for NASA to fake a moon landing this time around! <img src="/images/icons/wink.gif" />

 

[thermionic]

<br />Who cares if it's faked, as long as the video's good!<br /><br />Is the current plan to actually loft MSL in 2009? I had thought that it was posponed until 2011, for some reason...

 

[josh_simonson]

I don't think much would be moving on mars to make for interesting footage other than the rover. <br /><br />I guess it'd be cool if the MERs took video as they traveled and it could be compressed into a 5 minute video of their journeys. But that'd be more cool for coolness sake than doing much scientifically.

 

[mikejz]

The actual surface video would be very dull, and actually given the slow speed of the rovers still images in time laps acomplish the same thing. <br /><br />I am dissapointed however that a simple video camera was not attached to the MER lander for entry and landing video. You could have easily put something together to caputre, compress and transmit the data to the MER for latter trasmission to earth for under $100k and less than a pound.

 

[henryhallam]

As grooble mentioned, the dust devils would be worth a look.

 

[Philotas]

A recent Space.com article says that MSL is due to launch September 2009, or at least that`s a possibilty. I rembember an article about postponing the launch, but obviously they didn`t do it.<br /><br /><br />http://www.space.com/businesstechnology/060118_msl_wheels.html <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[Philotas]

Yeah; it might be interesting to see what happens with the soil when instruments are placed on it, and when the rover drives on it, as well. <br />Tells us about its consistence and physical properties. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[ehs40]

i think it would be interesting to have video and sound and be able to hear the wind on mars i just think it would be cool