The European Space Agency (ESA) is hosting a one-hour livestream on YouTube on June 2, 2023, to celebrate the 20th birthday of the Mars Express mission. Using the Visual Monitoring Camera (VMC), images will be streamed directly from Mars to Earth roughly every 50 seconds, marking a first in space livestreaming. Credit: ESA
The European Space Agency (ESA) is hosting a one-hour Mars livestream on June 2, 2023, for the 20th anniversary of Mars Express. Direct images from Mars will be broadcast roughly every 50 seconds via the Visual Monitoring Camera, marking a first in space livestreaming. Despite an 18-minute delay due to light travel and signal processing, this initiative will bring Mars to Earth in as close to real-time as currently possible.
For one hour on Friday, June 2, 2023, join ESA on YouTube for a space first as live images stream down direct from Mars – this will be the closest you can get to a live view from the Red Planet.
Does Mars really exist? Yes, but we only have evidence of it as it was in the past, once light has bounced off it or is sent by orbiters and landers exploring it, and travels to Earth. Depending on the two planets’ relative positions in orbit around the Sun, this can take anywhere from 3 to 22 minutes.
In this way, there’s actually no such thing as ‘live’ news in space as we are limited by the speed of light traversing great distances.
But, on Friday, to celebrate the 20th birthday of ESA’s Mars Express, you’ll have the chance to get as close as it’s currently possible get to Mars. Tune in to be amongst the first to see new pictures roughly every 50 seconds as they’re beamed down directly from the Visual Monitoring Camera (VMC) on board ESA’s long-lived but-still-highly-productive Martian orbiter.
Get live updates via @esaoperations on Twitter and with the hashtag #MarsLIVE. Livestream starts 9:00 a.m. PDT (12:00 p.m. EDT, 18:00 CEST, 17:00 BST).
Finally, live on Mars
Most observations and data gathered by spacecraft are taken during periods when they are not in direct contact with a ground station antenna on Earth. Either because of geometry – for example, on the other side of the Sun or Mars – or the spacecraft’s antenna is pointing away from Earth while gathering science data.
For science, this is no problem. The data is stored on board and beamed down a few hours or even days later, once the spacecraft is in contact with the ground again. What normally happens for the Visual Monitoring Camera on Mars Express, is every couple of days a new batch are ‘downlinked’, processed, and made available to the world.
For most space missions, this works perfectly. Scientists then pore over the data that come in for years, discovering new secrets about the Universe. This makes ‘live’ footage rather rare.
In fact, there are only a few examples in the history of spaceflight; including NASA’s DART and LCROSS missions which filmed the view as they intentionally crashed into asteroid Dimorphos and the Moon, respectively, and of course, the Apollo missions sent back spectacular live video that captured the globe, showing astronauts walking on the Moon’s surface.
These missions were all pretty close to home and others farther away sent perhaps an image or two in near real-time. When it comes to a lengthy livestream from deep space, this is a first.
