Artemis (NASA moon mission)

Its mission is classified, but clearly not its existence, i.e., it is an “acknowledged” program. This is the repurposed former Orbiter Processing Facility 1 (OPF-1), where they used to work on Space Shuttle Orbiters after landing. The reduced image is a little blurry, but the logo says “X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle”.
 

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Successful first burn at perilune, setting the spacecraft up for Distant Retrograde Orbit (DRO) insertion. So far, so good. Orion and its SM passed 81 miles over the surface of the Moon. Should be some good images coming our way.
 
sts60 said:
Should be some good images coming our way.
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Except, so far, not!

Their broadcasts have left a little to be desired.

There's been a little more showmanship in SpaceX's broadcasts. Now, that may not be their focus, and fair play, but for the price of SLS and Artemis, you might expect a little more. Certainly on their landing flight in (tentatively) 2025, I'd expect the whole thing to be livestreamed 4K! I guess we'll see...
 
Jimbo07 said:
Except, so far, not!

Their broadcasts have left a little to be desired.

There's been a little more showmanship in SpaceX's broadcasts. Now, that may not be their focus, and fair play, but for the price of SLS and Artemis, you might expect a little more. Certainly on their landing flight in (tentatively) 2025, I'd expect the whole thing to be livestreamed 4K! I guess we'll see...
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They should have sent more talkative mannequins.
 
Jimbo07 said:
Except, so far, not!

Their broadcasts have left a little to be desired.

There's been a little more showmanship in SpaceX's broadcasts. Now, that may not be their focus, and fair play, but for the price of SLS and Artemis, you might expect a little more. Certainly on their landing flight in (tentatively) 2025, I'd expect the whole thing to be livestreamed 4K! I guess we'll see...
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It will be a bit sad when engineers put a human on another astronomical body and everybody whines that the feed - from 384,000 km away - is not in 4K.
 
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arthwollipot said:
There's a regular series of images on the Artemis blog, but they're not spectacular. The latest ones look a little bit fake.
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I kinda see what you mean. No stars? Isn't that something that the moon-landings-were-faked people go on about?

I think it's because of the way cameras work. If the exposure were long enough to see stars, it would be too long to see the moon or the earth (oversaturation)

You cannot photograph well a very bright object and a very dim object in the same picture. You need long exposures for dim objects and short exposures for bright ones. It's more important here to focus on the moon than the stars in the background, so you end up not being able to see them at all, due to underexposure.
 
arthwollipot said:
There's a regular series of images on the Artemis blog, but they're not spectacular. The latest ones look a little bit fake.
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Puppycow said:
I kinda see what you mean. No stars? Isn't that something that the moon-landings-were-faked people go on about?

I think it's because of the way cameras work. If the exposure were long enough to see stars, it would be too long to see the moon or the earth (oversaturation)

You cannot photograph well a very bright object and a very dim object in the same picture. You need long exposures for dim objects and short exposures for bright ones. It's more important here to focus on the moon than the stars in the background, so you end up not being able to see them at all, due to underexposure.
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I noticed also that the focus isn't very tight on some of the pics.

I get the impression that top tier photography just wasn't much of a priority for the mission. Which is fine - it's a testing mission, not a photo safari.
 
Jimbo07 said:
Certainly on their landing flight in (tentatively) 2025, I'd expect the whole thing to be livestreamed 4K! I guess we'll see...
Click to expand...

jeremyp said:
It will be a bit sad when engineers put a human on another astronomical body and everybody whines that the feed - from 384,000 km away - is not in 4K.
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The opposite. It's what I would expect. In 1969, the Apollo feed was 10fps, monochrome, with earth-based signal processing... from the surface of the moon! It was a minor miracle, compared to the overall landing. In the 21st c, I'd expect a 4K equivalent. If they're going to land on the far side, then small cubesat relays won't be a big adder. This should be prioritized for the public who: a) want something new, b) vote and c) are footing the bill for the billions in public expenditure and schedule delays. No bucks, no Buck Rogers!

Puppycow said:
I kinda see what you mean. No stars? Isn't that something that the moon-landings-were-faked people go on about?

I think it's because of the way cameras work. If the exposure were long enough to see stars, it would be too long to see the moon or the earth (oversaturation)

You cannot photograph well a very bright object and a very dim object in the same picture. You need long exposures for dim objects and short exposures for bright ones. It's more important here to focus on the moon than the stars in the background, so you end up not being able to see them at all, due to underexposure.
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Apparently, even the astronauts see stars better in orbital nighttime. There's so much light and glare from the sun and earth in daytime, that their eyes don't resolve as many stars.

crescent said:
I get the impression that top tier photography just wasn't much of a priority for the mission. Which is fine - it's a testing mission, not a photo safari.
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Maybe. I suspect they're going to want to prioritize showmanship, even as early as the first (next) crewed flight.
 
SpaceX has pretty video because it never leaves NEO and can broadcast directly to the ground.

From deep space it's a different story. Artemis in Moon orbit has to transmit through the Deep Space Network. Streaming 4K video is an enormous ask of a satellite communications-relay network that was designed to carry telemetry and, on the outside, voice transmissions.

You believe a total rebuild of the DSN - a completely different program - should have been included in the SLS/Orion budget?
 
Checkmite said:
SpaceX has pretty video because it never leaves NEO and can broadcast directly to the ground.

From deep space it's a different story. Artemis in Moon orbit has to transmit through the Deep Space Network. Streaming 4K video is an enormous ask of a satellite communications-relay network that was designed to carry telemetry and, on the outside, voice transmissions.
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Going forward, it looks like Artemis will use a combination of the DSN and Near Space Network (NSN) with theoretical (currently demo) mission data rates up to 1.2Gbps. The DSN is also receiving minor upgrades, but this isn't its only mission.

You believe a total rebuild of the DSN - a completely different program - should have been included in the SLS/Orion budget?
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Given work in progress? No. Given that it's a 21st century megaproject? Data rates are something to consider. Of course, due to the vagaries of spaceflight, the best systems may have occurrences where they can't fully support 4K streaming. In that case, your stored solution could be 4K. They may even consider 8K or IMAX 65mm film, or something, for a stored solution.

ETA:

Further, SpaceX's 'show' goes beyond the stuff beamed from space. They have some fun telemetry, they cut to audio of applause, they don't have a scene where the big boss stands around saying, 'nobody in the room can hear me,' etc. That's all Earth-bound. NASA may feel they get a pass, because they're a room full of engineers working a problem, but I'm not sure the politicians see it that way. It's not just a case of 'poor NASA, SpaceX has it so much easier.'
 
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Jimbo07 said:
Given work in progress? No. Given that it's a 21st century megaproject? Data rates are something to consider. Of course, due to the vagaries of spaceflight, the best systems may have occurrences where they can't fully support 4K streaming. In that case, your stored solution could be 4K. They may even consider 8K or IMAX 65mm film, or something, for a stored solution.
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It is my understanding that Artemis is in fact storing 4K video and imagery on board for NASA to collect once Orion returns to Earth.
 
Checkmite said:
It is my understanding that Artemis is in fact storing 4K video and imagery on board for NASA to collect once Orion returns to Earth.
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The plot thicks. Some of the production values still need to be tidied up, but I did find an 'official' 4K broadcast of the launch. However, on launch night, it wasn't available! Did my YouTube just decide it needed a coffee break? Apparently, they upgraded the pad cameras for 4K broadcast, and it was initially their intention to do so.

So, I'm wrong, because apparently, it was only unavailable to me, but I'm right in that for an event/budget/public engagement this massive, 4K should be the expectation. That was the plan. I don't know what the plan is for various mission stages going ahead.

One other tricky aspect is that a stream might be 4K, but that could be the ground cameras and commentary, and not what is actually being sent back from the cameras.

ETA: starting to see some 1080p of earth rise/set from lunar orbit. That's what I'm talking about! (Now, I'm no longer talking about the engineering and mission setup and just geeking out as a space fan!)
 
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When I realized that the blob that appeared at the bottom of the live video of the moon flyby was Earth, I got goosebumps.

I figure the amount of my taxes that goes to NASA each year is less than we'd spend going out for a movie once. The return on investment from just the entertainment value I am getting from this launch far outweighs the cost!
 
jadebox said:
When I realized that the blob that appeared at the bottom of the live video of the moon flyby was Earth, I got goosebumps.

I figure the amount of my taxes that goes to NASA each year is less than we'd spend going out for a movie once. The return on investment from just the entertainment value I am getting from this launch far outweighs the cost!
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In 1080p the 'blob' resolves to a nicely detailed view of Earth from lunar orbit.

Note: CNET has a nice little overview video of the camera work. Yes, streaming might be poor, but apparently, a lot of good stuff is anticipated once Orion returns. For landing and longer term missions, I could see them shooting in 4K, but not necessarily streaming. Then, since they wouldn't be returning to Earth, they could data dump later at lower bit rates.
 
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Awesome. As in the old sense of filling one with awe.

It’s gonna be like a free candy store being opened when all the different video is downloaded, downloaded upon return, orthocorrected, etc., and curated for easy viewing.

Ha, it would be absolutely the cherry on top if we could get imagery of reentry find something in orbit.
 
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