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There are some people saying that the onboard cameras are very bad and badly positioned. While the imagery is breathtaking to me, it's just a tiny taste of what

There are some people saying that the onboard cameras are very bad and badly positioned. While the imagery is breathtaking to me, it's just a tiny taste of what's yet to come — most of the images/videos haven't been downlinked yet. Orion is the most media consumption focused craft that NASA has ever sent out. There are 16 cameras on the mission, ranging from, — 7 COTS GoPro Hero 4 Black derived cameras that shoot video in, 4k/30fps, 1080p/120fps, 720p/240fps. 4 of these are mounted on tips of the solar panel. Most of the pictures that you are seeing are from these cameras. - Cameras around the service module and the Orion capsule that are (mostly, AFAICT) wired cameras derived from PixeLINK PL-D725, these shoot in color and B&W, and record at 75fps on a single channel. - 3 internal Cameras that are a part of Callisto a Lockheed Martin thing. On the ground, we've gotten used to fairly high bandwidth communications system, but Orion is using NASA's Deep Space Network. There just isn't enough bandwidth to downlink the kind of pristine imagery that people want. We'll have to wait until the capsule comes back home to watch all of the 4k video that this machine is capturing. We have come a long way though, when the Apollo missions were going on, all they had were grainy TV broadcasts. They had to wait for weeks to get those gorgeous images out.

iJohnDoe 4y ago
Thanks for the information. Very helpful. My conspiracy side thinks NASA wants the opportunity to review the high resolution photos and video before they are revealed to the public.
- WalterBright 4y ago
  They have to paint out by hand the wires that enable the astronauts to walk like they're in low gravity. This takes time.
  - UnpossibleJim 4y ago
    Automation is their friend. Just "hot pink" those wires and batch the process =P
- mindcrime 4y ago
  Okay, boss, this LTX-71 concealable mike is part of the same system that NASA used when they faked the Apollo Moon landings. They had the astronauts broadcast around the world from a sound stage at Norton Air Force Base in San Bernadino, California. So it worked for them, shouldn't give us too many problems.
  - runesofdoom 4y ago
    That's not true. Everyone knows that Coppola forced them to shoot on-site.
    - SkyMarshal 4y ago
      Coppola: If I'm going to make a fake moon landing video it's going to be the best damn one ever created. We're shooting on site, and that's final!
      - bombcar 4y ago
        I believe someone did the math and supposedly showed that it would have been cheaper to actually land on the moon than fake it with what they had available at the time.
    - actionfromafar 4y ago
      It used to be Kubrick
- anogrebattle 4y ago
  To be fair, NASA _is_ probably reviewing the high res imagery before releasing it, but for a much more mundane reason than any conspiracy theory. A lot of contractors worked on Orion. NASA is responsible for not accidentally leaking any trade secrets that may be visible in imagery.
  - mcculley 4y ago
    If the fundamental delay to NASA releasing images is leak of proprietary data, that is a pretty good argument against the continued existence of NASA as a public agency.
    - s1artibartfast 4y ago
      Why? Public Agencies work with private parties and individuals all the time. This brings constraints on what they can do with information.
      - mcculley 4y ago
        There is an enormous spectrum between "we cannot release some proprietary data from COTS components" and "we cannot release images without approval from our vendors". (Not that I am convinced that this is the real reason why NASA is not releasing images quickly.)
        s1artibartfast 4y ago
        Waiting for approval from vendors is a big difference from NASA reviewing the photos themselves, which was the original claim
        mcculley 4y ago
        I would find such a delay unacceptable for a public agency. Anything visible in the photos should be releasable.
- themadturk 4y ago
  "That's no moon. That's the set Stanley Kubrick built to film the fake moon landings."
- el_toast 4y ago
  No conspiracy or funniness to be had. ITAR is the main limiting factor to releasing images/videos at this point. Next is the download rate and the high res images are not high priority since operations can be run using lower resolution. We all need to remember mission success is the highest priority. We will get the good stuff we want, just not immediately.
  - c_o_n_v_e_x 4y ago
    >ITAR is the main limiting factor to releasing images/videos at this point. Pictures of the moon fall under ITAR?
- lowbloodsugar 4y ago
  Gotta edit out the decepticons.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
poutine 4y ago
Wait, a GoPro works in vacuum in space? Even one derived from that? That's pretty cool. What did they do to it to make it work in such a crazy environment?
- pkaye 4y ago
  NASA has plenty of vacuum chambers that they can control the pressure and temperature. They even tested the entire JWST hardware in a massive vacuum chamber.
  - TaylorAlexander 4y ago
    heck I have a vacuum chamber on my desk at home, though not one as good as the NASA ones
  - harywilke 4y ago
    Here is the entire Orion spacecraft being put in one NASA's vacuum chambers. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G99L5RRjEKA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G99L5RRjEKA
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- dotnet00 4y ago
  It seems likely that a lot of industrial grade hardware would work just fine in space, needing at most minor tweaks, especially for operating periods of weeks/months at most. Government contracting is just too used to the old model of burning billions on redesigning everything (because, of course, jobs). They've only barely gotten over that model for rocketry in general. For instance, the footage on Perseverance's landing was also all from off-the-shelf hardware. The Ingenuity helicopter is also largely off-the-shelf gear, it uses a plain old Snapdragon 801 as its main processor running Linux. Perseverance also uses an Intel Atom processor (although it carries 2) to receive footage from all the cameras and compress them, compared to the main processor, which is an ancient PowerPC chip. IIRC there was also a cubesat which used a smartphone as its processor and several others which have used Raspberry Pis. A GoPro has also been to space earlier this year.
godelski 4y ago
> On the ground, On the ground we've also gotten used to soft lighting conditions. Light in space works pretty differently from that on ground. On Earth we have more diffuse lighting as the light of the sun gets spread out from the atmosphere. There are many (MANY) surfaces for light to bounce off of and reflect from, making a more full looking light. In space, on the other hand, light is more often like a point light source. Your background is (effectively) the blackest of blacks. Your foreground is extremely bright. Cameras have pretty limited dynamic ranges. This also contributes to the blurryness you see and why the shadows look "off" (there's actually conspiracy theories around shadows on the moon because of this misunderstanding). So even after we get all that 4k video things will still be "off" but like areoform is saying, we've come an incredibly long ways. I for one am excited for all these images. But also don't expect them to look like what you're used to on Earth. (and take this message as a warning for incoming conspiracies)
anikom15 4y ago
NASA has all that money and they can’t even get cameras that shoot at 4K@60p?
accrual 4y ago
> when the Apollo missions were going on, all they had were grainy TV broadcasts This reminds me of a not-so-fun fact where the original Apollo 11 data tapes were presumed saved elsewhere and were likely erased and recorded over. [0] The video that still remains from "one small step" is essentially a recording of a recording. Since the 10 FPS raw feed wasn't compatible with the TV broadcast standards at the time, they essentially pointed a normal TV camera at a TV displaying the source feed. However, some better quality broadcast recorded tapes were found, restored, and released in 2009. [1] [0] https://www.nasa.gov/feature/not-unsolved-mysteries-the-lost-apollo-11-tapes https://www.nasa.gov/feature/not-unsolved-mysteries-the-lost... [1] https://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/hd/apollo11_hdpage.html https://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/hd/apollo11_hdpage.html
rasz 4y ago
>COTS GoPro Hero 4 Black derived cameras and they didnt overheat? Inconceivable!

iJohnDoe 4y ago

Thanks for the information. Very helpful. My conspiracy side thinks NASA wants the opportunity to review the high resolution photos and video before they are revealed to the public.

WalterBright 4y ago
They have to paint out by hand the wires that enable the astronauts to walk like they're in low gravity. This takes time.
- UnpossibleJim 4y ago
  Automation is their friend. Just "hot pink" those wires and batch the process =P
mindcrime 4y ago
Okay, boss, this LTX-71 concealable mike is part of the same system that NASA used when they faked the Apollo Moon landings. They had the astronauts broadcast around the world from a sound stage at Norton Air Force Base in San Bernadino, California. So it worked for them, shouldn't give us too many problems.
- runesofdoom 4y ago
  That's not true. Everyone knows that Coppola forced them to shoot on-site.
  - SkyMarshal 4y ago
    Coppola: If I'm going to make a fake moon landing video it's going to be the best damn one ever created. We're shooting on site, and that's final!
    - bombcar 4y ago
      I believe someone did the math and supposedly showed that it would have been cheaper to actually land on the moon than fake it with what they had available at the time.
  - actionfromafar 4y ago
    It used to be Kubrick
anogrebattle 4y ago
To be fair, NASA _is_ probably reviewing the high res imagery before releasing it, but for a much more mundane reason than any conspiracy theory. A lot of contractors worked on Orion. NASA is responsible for not accidentally leaking any trade secrets that may be visible in imagery.
- mcculley 4y ago
  If the fundamental delay to NASA releasing images is leak of proprietary data, that is a pretty good argument against the continued existence of NASA as a public agency.
  - s1artibartfast 4y ago
    Why? Public Agencies work with private parties and individuals all the time. This brings constraints on what they can do with information.
    - mcculley 4y ago
      There is an enormous spectrum between "we cannot release some proprietary data from COTS components" and "we cannot release images without approval from our vendors". (Not that I am convinced that this is the real reason why NASA is not releasing images quickly.)
      - s1artibartfast 4y ago
        Waiting for approval from vendors is a big difference from NASA reviewing the photos themselves, which was the original claim
        mcculley 4y ago
        I would find such a delay unacceptable for a public agency. Anything visible in the photos should be releasable.
themadturk 4y ago
"That's no moon. That's the set Stanley Kubrick built to film the fake moon landings."
el_toast 4y ago
No conspiracy or funniness to be had. ITAR is the main limiting factor to releasing images/videos at this point. Next is the download rate and the high res images are not high priority since operations can be run using lower resolution. We all need to remember mission success is the highest priority. We will get the good stuff we want, just not immediately.
- c_o_n_v_e_x 4y ago
  >ITAR is the main limiting factor to releasing images/videos at this point. Pictures of the moon fall under ITAR?
lowbloodsugar 4y ago
Gotta edit out the decepticons.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

poutine 4y ago

Wait, a GoPro works in vacuum in space? Even one derived from that? That's pretty cool. What did they do to it to make it work in such a crazy environment?

pkaye 4y ago
NASA has plenty of vacuum chambers that they can control the pressure and temperature. They even tested the entire JWST hardware in a massive vacuum chamber.
- TaylorAlexander 4y ago
  heck I have a vacuum chamber on my desk at home, though not one as good as the NASA ones
- harywilke 4y ago
  Here is the entire Orion spacecraft being put in one NASA's vacuum chambers. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G99L5RRjEKA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G99L5RRjEKA
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
dotnet00 4y ago
It seems likely that a lot of industrial grade hardware would work just fine in space, needing at most minor tweaks, especially for operating periods of weeks/months at most. Government contracting is just too used to the old model of burning billions on redesigning everything (because, of course, jobs). They've only barely gotten over that model for rocketry in general. For instance, the footage on Perseverance's landing was also all from off-the-shelf hardware. The Ingenuity helicopter is also largely off-the-shelf gear, it uses a plain old Snapdragon 801 as its main processor running Linux. Perseverance also uses an Intel Atom processor (although it carries 2) to receive footage from all the cameras and compress them, compared to the main processor, which is an ancient PowerPC chip. IIRC there was also a cubesat which used a smartphone as its processor and several others which have used Raspberry Pis. A GoPro has also been to space earlier this year.

godelski 4y ago

> On the ground, On the ground we've also gotten used to soft lighting conditions. Light in space works pretty differently from that on ground. On Earth we have more diffuse lighting as the light of the sun gets spread out from the atmosphere. There are many (MANY) surfaces for light to bounce off of and reflect from, making a more full looking light. In space, on the other hand, light is more often like a point light source. Your background is (effectively) the blackest of blacks. Your foreground is extremely bright. Cameras have pretty limited dynamic ranges. This also contributes to the blurryness you see and why the shadows look "off" (there's actually conspiracy theories around shadows on the moon because of this misunderstanding). So even after we get all that 4k video things will still be "off" but like areoform is saying, we've come an incredibly long ways. I for one am excited for all these images. But also don't expect them to look like what you're used to on Earth. (and take this message as a warning for incoming conspiracies)

anikom15 4y ago

NASA has all that money and they can’t even get cameras that shoot at 4K@60p?

accrual 4y ago

> when the Apollo missions were going on, all they had were grainy TV broadcasts This reminds me of a not-so-fun fact where the original Apollo 11 data tapes were presumed saved elsewhere and were likely erased and recorded over. [0] The video that still remains from "one small step" is essentially a recording of a recording. Since the 10 FPS raw feed wasn't compatible with the TV broadcast standards at the time, they essentially pointed a normal TV camera at a TV displaying the source feed. However, some better quality broadcast recorded tapes were found, restored, and released in 2009. [1] [0] https://www.nasa.gov/feature/not-unsolved-mysteries-the-lost-apollo-11-tapes https://www.nasa.gov/feature/not-unsolved-mysteries-the-lost... [1] https://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/hd/apollo11_hdpage.html https://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/hd/apollo11_hdpage.html

rasz 4y ago

>COTS GoPro Hero 4 Black derived cameras and they didnt overheat? Inconceivable!