[HN Gopher] NASA's tech demo streams first video from deep space...
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NASA's tech demo streams first video from deep space via laser
Author : basementcat
Score : 103 points
Date : 2023-12-19 15:56 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.jpl.nasa.gov)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.jpl.nasa.gov)
| Someone wrote:
| How far we've come in less than half a century:
|
| 1977: NASA sends a carefully created record containing _"sounds
| and images selected to portray the diversity of life and culture
| on Earth, and are intended for any intelligent extraterrestrial
| life form who may find them"_ into space
| (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voyager_Golden_Record)
|
| 2023: NASA sends a cat video into space.
| pfdietz wrote:
| Obviously they should have sent cat memes in 1977.
| eichin wrote:
| I was going to be pedantic about this (the laser downlink is
| _from_ space, from Psyche-probe to Earth) but that got me
| wondering, how did they get the cat video on board? The article
| points out that it was loaded onto Psyche before launch.
|
| Which means we're using rockets to send cat videos into
| (interplanetary) space... the logical evolution of the "station
| wagon full of magtapes" meme.
| tomatotomato37 wrote:
| imagine as a species being so powerful that you manipulate the
| fabric of reality to taint professional interstellar
| communication with an audiovisual feed of your presence
|
| amazing
| have_faith wrote:
| Haven't we been inadvertently sending our terrestrial
| broadcasts into space for decades?
|
| I remember a Futurama episode about aliens watching our TV
| programs.
| johnohara wrote:
| Are you referring to the "historical documents?"
| ta1243 wrote:
| I think you are thinking about Galaxy Quest
| drivers99 wrote:
| Same concept is also referenced in Starman(1984),
| Contact(1997), and Explorers(1985), off the top of my head.
| ta1243 wrote:
| It's a common theme for Lrrr from the planet Omicron Persei 8
| over several episodes
| whartung wrote:
| There's that old adage that Man used to worship cats, and that
| cats still think that's true.
|
| I'm not positive the cats are wrong.
|
| I mean, consider the Internet. ARPA invented the Internet. And,
| it's clear that the Internet's primary purpose is as an avenue
| for Cat worship. Just as the cats want.
|
| ARPA became DARPA, DEFENSE Advanced Research Project Agency.
| DEFENSE! As in defending the homeland from external and
| existential threats. Normally they focus on things like lasers,
| and nuclear weapons, and preventing space rocks from slamming
| into the Earth and ending civilization. But, they still have
| their hooks into the Internet.
|
| Promoting adoption, increasing capability. And, as posited
| before, the primary purpose of the Internet is facilitating cat
| worship. What does DARPA know that we don't?
|
| MEANWHILE, we're having open Congressional panels about Aliens.
| No more cloak and dagger surrounding UFOs and and what not.
| That jig is up! Apparently, whatever secret pact the G-Men had
| with the Aliens is no longer in place. The cover is off, it's
| now just a matter of time.
|
| But where are the hearings on Cats and their paws at the
| throats of power? We don't hear about that, do we? Cleary, this
| is far more dangerous than anything intra- or inter-galactic
| aliens can bring to the table.
|
| So. I know, I know, I am but a whisper in the wind. An internet
| crackpot and troll. That, however, doesn't make the truth less
| clear.
|
| At the same time, this message should be questioned. My cat,
| Georgie, is here and let me send it.
|
| Why? I guess the cat being out of the bag is ok with them.
|
| And I must cut this short, apparently there a tummy that needs
| to be rubbed.
| I_Am_Nous wrote:
| As cute as Taters is, we already have Nyancat traveling through
| space so I'm a little disappointed Nyancat wasn't at least on the
| screen as "test information" lol
| cooper_ganglia wrote:
| Major missed opportunity
| atmavatar wrote:
| That, or they could have sent a clip from the movie The Cat
| From Outer Space https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0077305/
| I_Am_Nous wrote:
| Aw I loved that movie as a kid, yet another missed
| opportunity by NASA!
| FlingPoo wrote:
| 10 hours of Nyan Cat for your pleasure. :)
|
| https://youtu.be/jIQ6UV2onyI
| huhtenberg wrote:
| It's copyrighted and the copyright is enforced -
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nyan_Cat#Lawsuit
| m3kw9 wrote:
| I wonder how much error correction data was needed to be added
| codezero wrote:
| Yep I'm curious about what encoding was used. I doubt it was
| video optimized as realtime decoding likely wasn't a goal.
| basementcat wrote:
| This is the channel coding and synchronization specification
| that is used on DSOC. https://public.ccsds.org/Pubs/142x0b1.pdf
| tromp wrote:
| The laster travelled over 30 million km to be received by a dish
| of 20m^2 in area [1].
|
| This makes me wonder: what fraction of the transmitted signal
| made it to that dish, i.e. how much does the beam disperse over
| that distance?
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hale_Telescope
| codezero wrote:
| They also mention the video was sent on a loop, so I wonder how
| many loops it took to collect every frame.
| Sporktacular wrote:
| If they received at 267 Mb/s that's probably faster than
| necessary for realtime decoding.
| sansseriff wrote:
| The laser spot can reach half the size of the continental
| united states. Though I'm not sure how large it is now because
| psyche is still relatively close to earth.
| account42 wrote:
| LIFE:: 5/9
|
| Maybe Taters shouldn't chase after lasers with remaining lives.
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| After traveling that distance, I would expect the video to be
| kind of... fuzzy.
|
| Right, I'll show myself out...
| devsda wrote:
| > Beginning in 1928, a small statue of the popular cartoon
| character Felix the Cat was featured in television test broadcast
| transmissions
|
| So, cats have been dominating the airwaves from the beginning of
| broadcast video.
|
| The article says the video was sent to earth at 267 Mbps.
|
| As much as we are interested in watching interstellar feline
| adventures, I'd imagine future astronauts will be equally or more
| interested in watching videos of their favorite cats(or humans
| occasionally).
|
| So, I'm curious to know the max speed at which we can transmit
| from earth to a spacecraft at similar distances.
| daltont wrote:
| "cats have been dominating the airwaves from the beginning of
| broadcast video."
|
| Maybe the Kzinti will think we are long lost relatives after
| receiving them.
|
| (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kzin)
| Sanzig wrote:
| All else being equal, you could conceivably push a higher data
| rate on the forward link. The apertures are the same size, just
| the transmit and receive apertures are reversed, so geometric
| losses would be exactly the same. However, you can get a much
| more powerful laser on the ground since you don't have to worry
| about the power and thermal constraints you have with the
| transmitter on the spacecraft. This advantage will be pared
| down somewhat as the spacecraft won't have as sensitive a
| detector as the ground station (since it's harder to actively
| cool it for low dark count, for example). But on balance I
| expect you will come out ahead.
|
| That said, on real world deep space missions, forward links are
| generally much slower than return links. This is because the
| slower you go, the better margin you have to close a link in
| adverse conditions (eg: mis-pointed spacecraft antenna for an
| RF link). Since you are completely screwed if you can't command
| the spacecraft, TT&C engineers will always go for a slower rate
| on the forward link for added Murphy insurance unless there's a
| pressing need to do otherwise.
| pvaldes wrote:
| Trying to lure ALF with a dish. That's dedication.
| huhtenberg wrote:
| How would one go about receiving and decoding such transmission
| at home? I would assume it's doable, no?
| gene-h wrote:
| They used the Palomar observatory's Hale telescope to receive
| the signal. So it may be doable provided you have a 5.1 m
| aperture telescope at home
| simne wrote:
| I wonder, when cat will send from other star.
| yegle wrote:
| "The video signal took 101 seconds to reach Earth, sent at the
| system's maximum bit rate of 267 megabits per second (Mbps)."
|
| Based on some quick search, this is comparable to US median
| broadband download speed.
| xnx wrote:
| I think this also means that the the capacity of the empty
| space in 3.4GB. Someone has previously pointed out the
| interesting networking/caching(/storage?) implications for such
| long transmission time.
| EvanAnderson wrote:
| Indeed, you could use that empty space as delay line memory.
| That's some wicked latency, though.
| mk_stjames wrote:
| This idea is covered during the first part of one of my
| favorite Tom7 videos.
|
| If this comment is the first you are hearing of Tom7... strap
| in and enjoy:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JcJSW7Rprio
| ben7799 wrote:
| Kind of amazing the article doesn't contain the word latency a
| single time.
|
| It's good they're improving throughput/bandwidth but it doesn't
| help the big problem which is the latency.
| pxeger1 wrote:
| I mean the latency problem is definitely not solvable, so why
| would they be trying to work on it?
| proaralyst wrote:
| There's a hard physical limit (speed of light) on latency
| that we can't do anything about. Higher bandwidth deep space
| communication gives us the ability to recover more science
| data from robotic missions, so it's worth working on.
| marc__1 wrote:
| Is this humanity's first attempt to test the Dark Forest Theory?
| basementcat wrote:
| For more of "Taters the Space Cat" check out its Instagram
| https://www.instagram.com/taters_space_cat/
| daltont wrote:
| It would be just be cool just to have a HD footage of satellite
| orbiting Mars or Venus.
| dwd wrote:
| While not mentioned in the article, Spacelink (a spinoff from
| EOS) has a contract with the GSFC for tracking space objects for
| high bandwidth communication.
|
| Interesting thing is EOS originally started in this field and
| later found there is a huge opportunity in military applications
| for it's stabilised tracking hardware/software such as remote
| weapons stations while the vehicle is moving.
|
| https://eos-aus.com/nasa-awards-contract-to-spacelink/
| Sporktacular wrote:
| A 267 Mb/s UHD cat video from 31 million kms.
|
| What an age we live in.
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(page generated 2023-12-19 23:01 UTC)