NASA is preparing for its next lunar mission, with plans to broadcast high-definition (HD) videos of the moon landing in color. The transmission will be digital and up to 60 frames per second. To achieve this, space communications experts are working on overcoming various challenges, including bandwidth constraints, signal delays, and dust.
Recently, a simulated moonwalk was conducted at the LUNA facility in Germany, where ESA and DLR led the effort. The rehearsal included footage of astronauts leaving a landing module, exploring the Moon’s surface, and taking selfies. Imagery experts captured both static images and dynamic ones with moving cameras and astronauts.
To address the limitations of receiving high-quality images through limited bandwidth, experts from 28 nations are part of the Consultative Committee for Space Data Systems (CCSDS). This team discusses encoding and transmission techniques to ensure video quality and data handling from space.
Europe’s Moon on Earth facility provides realistic lunar conditions for testing equipment and procedures before actual missions. Experts wore protective clothing to prevent dust from sticking to their clothes and hair, as moon dust presents a significant challenge for filming.
The challenges of transmitting videos from the Moon include size and power consumption. Lunar equipment must be lightweight, energy-efficient, and resilient to extreme temperature variations. Signal delay is another issue, taking 1.3 seconds for radio signals to travel from the Moon to Earth.
To overcome these challenges, ESA’s Moonlight programme aims to establish a constellation of five lunar satellites for high data rate communications. This will boost communication links between the Moon and Earth.
Historically, Apollo missions used microwave frequencies with limited bandwidth, resulting in black and white images due to insufficient power consumption. The future holds promise with optical communications using lasers, which could provide lightweight and high-bandwidth transmissions.
While capturing moon landings in HD is a significant achievement, overcoming these challenges requires continued innovation and cooperation among space agencies and experts.
Source: https://www.esa.int/Science_Exploration/Human_and_Robotic_Exploration/How_to_capture_Moon_landing_videos_from_grainy_to_HD