Visual Monitoring Camera
Visual Monitoring Camera[1] (or Video Monitoring Camera[2]), also known as "Mars Webcam", is a small camera (65x60x108 mm) mounted on Mars Express spacecraft, with the unique purpose of monitoring Beagle 2 deployment, happened on December 19, 2003 at 8:31 UTC (9:31 CET). After performing this task, VMC remained unused, having no scientific purposes or any clear purpose until in 2007 it was checked out and turned on for education and science outreach.[3] The Mars webcam was born and proved hugely popular with the public, offering wide-angle shots of Mars on regular basis.[4] Eventually, the Mars webcam was adopted as a science instrument in May 2016 and some of the scientific observations intended to be made include the monitoring of Mars weather such as dust storms and clouds.[5] The camera now having produced over 19,000 images by 2016, will continue to have images offered to the public.[6]
Sometimes ESA started public campaigns inviting people to propose subjects to be shot by the camera, for example there was one planned for 25–27 May 2015.[7]
Technical specifications[8]
- CMOS based (IMEC IRIS-1)
- B/W + RGB filters
- Image size: 640x480 pixels
- Pixel depth: 8 bits
- Field of View: 40 x 31 degrees
- Distance from Mars surface: 300–10000 km[9]
- Calculated[10] resolution at 10000 km: 11.5 km/pixel
- Calculated[11] resolution at 300 km: 0.347 km/pixel
- Mass: 430 g
- Size: 65 x 60 x 108 mm
VMC is not operated by scientists as other onboard instruments; it's instead operated by the Mars Express Flight Control Team, based at ESOC, Darmstadt, Germany. MEFCT is currently uploading VMC images to its Flickr account in a fully automated process which makes images available to the public as soon as they are downloaded from the spacecraft,[12] and all pictures taken till now are available for free download, including images of Beagle 2 separation occurred in 2003.[13]
External resources
- VMC blog: http://blogs.esa.int/vmc/
- VMC FAQ: http://blogs.esa.int/vmc/faq/
- Flickr archive: https://www.flickr.com/photos/esa_marswebcam/with/16707518966/
Images copyright[14]
All VMC images, past and present, are released by ESA under a CC license, as follows:
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 IGO (CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO) licence. The user is allowed to reproduce, distribute, adapt, translate and publicly perform this publication, without explicit permission, provided that the content is accompanied by an acknowledgement that the source is credited as 'ESA - European Space Agency’, a direct link to the licence text is provided (see example below) and that it is clearly indicated if changes were made to the original content. Adaptation/translation/derivatives must be distributed under the same licence terms as this publication. To view a copy of this license, please visit creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/igo
Credit: ESA - European Space Agency, CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO
Science instrument
The Planetary Sciences Group of the University of the Basque is conducting a two-year mission using the Mars webcam.[15]
References
- ^ http://blogs.esa.int/vmc/faq/
- ^ http://www.lpi.usra.edu/vexag/mission_definition.pdf , p.3
- ^ [1]
- ^ [2]
- ^ [3]
- ^ [4]
- ^ VMC Imaging campaign 2015 - http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Operations/Have_you_ever_used_a_camera_on_board_an_interplanetary_spacecraft
- ^ VMC technical specifications - http://blogs.esa.int/vmc/faq/
- ^ Mars Express orbit video - https://www.flickr.com/photos/esa_marswebcam/16707518966/
- ^ tan(31°/2) * 10000km / 240pixel
- ^ tan(31°/2) * 300km / 240pixel
- ^ http://www.planetary.org/blogs/emily-lakdawalla/2012/12190600-mars-express-vmc.html
- ^ 8 images of Beagle 2 separation - https://www.flickr.com/photos/esa_marswebcam/sets/72157632218100711/
- ^ Copyright info - https://www.flickr.com/people/esa_marswebcam/
- ^ [5]
External links
- Looking at the limb of Mars with VMC (Video made with the VMC)
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