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Can someone explain why it's so technically challenging to get a good quality audio and video feed to / from a suborbital vehicle? Is it just a matter of a long
by rexreed 5y ago
Can someone explain why it's so technically challenging to get a good quality audio and video feed to / from a suborbital vehicle? Is it just a matter of a long physical distance between transmitter and receiver? How is it that I can stream HD quality audio from satellites (XM Radio) in near-realtime but near-realtime audio and video from spacecraft seems to be extremely low quality and high latency? Is it just a matter of transmitter power?
- mempko 5y agobluetooth has always been pretty bad.
- nerdbaggy 5y agoHere is a manual to the Falcon9 which talks about how they do it. It’s all digital S Band https://www.spacex.com/media/Falcon_Users_Guide_082020.pdf https://www.spacex.com/media/Falcon_Users_Guide_082020.pdf
- rexreed 5y agoAnd yet the live video from the Moon was higher quality using analog: https://space.stackexchange.com/questions/2993/how-did-nasa-achieve-their-live-tv-broadcast-in-1969 https://space.stackexchange.com/questions/2993/how-did-nasa-... I feel like we have made negative progress in this particular area.
- candiodari 5y agoOn the way down it's easy: because the air compresses and heats up to the point it becomes a plasma. And despite that we associate it with a glow, it's actually perfectly dark (there are free electron bands in it). In other words: it blocks every frequency, and lasers, if you want to go line of sight. Now you can get better quality with better receivers/transmitters, but I guess it takes a lot of engineering they didn't do yet.