Author Topic: NASA Launches International Space Station Webcam Streaming Video  (Read 30155 times)

Offline jacqmans

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RELEASE: 09-054

NASA LAUNCHES INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION WEBCAM STREAMING VIDEO

HOUSTON -- Internet visitors can now see the Earth as never before --
live from the International Space Station via streaming video, seven
days a week.

The streaming video views of Earth and the exterior structure of the
station are from cameras mounted outside the laboratory complex,
orbiting Earth at 17,500 miles an hour at an altitude of 220 miles.
The video is transmitted to the ground -- and Web viewers --
primarily while the astronauts aboard the complex are asleep, usually
from about 1 p.m. to 1 a.m. CST. When live feeds are not available, a
map showing the current location and path of the station will be
streamed from NASA's Mission Control in Houston.

The streaming video will include audio of communications between
Mission Control and the astronauts, when available. When the space
shuttle is docked to the station, the stream will include video and
audio of those activities.

The International Space Station, a unique partnership between the
space agencies of the United States, Russia, Japan, Canada and
Europe. Construction began in 1998 and will be completed in 2010.
Eighteen crews have lived aboard the orbiting complex since 2000,
including the current crew of three. Station residents have conducted
important scientific experiments and gathered data to help assist
future missions to the moon and Mars.

To view the streaming station video and for more information about the
station and its crew, visit:



http://www.nasa.gov/station


To find out when the station will be visible over your city, visit:



http://www.jsc.nasa.gov/sightings
Jacques :-)

Online eeergo

At last :D This is great news!

But it took them a little time (about ten years!) to realize...
-DaviD-

Online Ronsmytheiii

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I dont understand why video is not offered when the crew is awake, I would imagine whatever is available to MCC should be appropriate for general consumption.

Offline rdale

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Checking with my sources to see what the status is on getting crew / experiment ops / etc.

Offline psloss

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At last :D This is great news!

But it took them a little time (about ten years!) to realize...
Don't forget that the capability to do reasonably high-bandwidth downlink wasn't available until after the first major wave of outfitting occurred in 2001.  (The Ku-antenna came up on ISS-3A/STS-92, but wasn't fully activated until after the Lab and following logistics came up on ISS-5A and beyond.)

Offline rdale

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Confirmed that external views will be available from the end of the evening Daily Planning Conference (DPC) to the start of the next day's morning DPC.

When a NASA TV event is occurring (EVA, Soyuz, etc.) the feed will duplicate NASA TV. Otherwise there will be no internal views, and only the tracking map will be displayed.

So honestly - this is pretty useless. Unless you like to watch live Earthcam video at 3am :)

Offline rdale

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The reasoning behind the lack of internal video is due to international agreements, proprietary science experiments, and crew privacy.

Offline marshallsplace

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Live Space Station Video includes Earth views from external cameras on the International Space Station during crew off-duty periods, selected in-cabin views of crew activities during the crew on-duty periods, and a graphical world map that depicts the station’s location in orbit above the Earth using real-time telemetry sent to Mission Control from the station.


http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/iss_details.html

Offline Michael Z Freeman

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Excellent news ! I will have this on when I can.
I love NSF!

Offline rdale

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selected in-cabin views of crew activities during the crew on-duty periods

That's misleading... It only means that if they are doing an EVA or other event being covered on the "regular" NASA TV schedule (like STS-119) then you will see inside the ISS. Otherwise PAO has made it clear you will NOT see anything ever inside the station.

Offline marshallsplace

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selected in-cabin views of crew activities during the crew on-duty periods

That's misleading... It only means that if they are doing an EVA or other event being covered on the "regular" NASA TV schedule (like STS-119) then you will see inside the ISS. Otherwise PAO has made it clear you will NOT see anything ever inside the station.

That's a real shame then - NASA should rephrase the text so not to mislead.

Offline rdale

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Here's the official word:

==
The Live Space Station Video feed on the web will feature external camera views during crew off-duty periods, defined as between the conclusion of their evening Daily Planning Conference and the start of their morning Daily Planning Conference.

During crew on-duty periods, the feed will feature the Mission Control tracking map for station, or any station-related NASA TV produced content. This will include our weekday hour of ISS commentary, significant events such as crew launches, dockings, EVAs, and shuttle mission coverage. During those periods, the channel will duplicate the NASA TV stream and include in-cabin views.

[...]

Agreements with crew members, international partners and researchers who may be using proprietary equipment or processes, and privacy issues also limit what video can be distributed.

Offline erioladastra

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The reasoning behind the lack of internal video is due to international agreements, proprietary science experiments, and crew privacy.

No, the first 2 don't really apply.  It is mainly crew privacy and the fact that we don't have the resources to manage this to the detail that is needed to ensure proper feed.  The on console team would be constantly managing donwlinks as well as the crew moving and managing cameras.  Neither has the time for all that work.  Agree, it would be awesome but it is not a trivial process.

Offline rdale

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What sort of crew privacy issues are there in the lab modules when they are doing experiments? I guess I don't get the difference between seeing them when they say "Look at this" and hearing them?

Offline JimO

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So honestly - this is pretty useless. Unless you like to watch live Earthcam video at 3am :)

.. or on 'UFO patrol' !!

Offline erioladastra

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What sort of crew privacy issues are there in the lab modules when they are doing experiments? I guess I don't get the difference between seeing them when they say "Look at this" and hearing them?

Some of the medical experiements are invasive.  No one wants an astronaut going "oops" and blood squirting.  Imagine if you were the family reading about a minor thing like that on the internet.  Some crew don't like exercising in front of the camera.  And what if you called your spouse and got bad news and were crying - would you want that on the internet?

Offline rdale

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Of course not, that's not what any of us are looking for.

But when they say "Here's the flame experiment, look at that thing go!" then part of me has a hard time saying that's invasive, or proprietary, or is too difficult for someone to send to the web feed in realtime.

Offline erioladastra

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Of course not, that's not what any of us are looking for.

But when they say "Here's the flame experiment, look at that thing go!" then part of me has a hard time saying that's invasive, or proprietary, or is too difficult for someone to send to the web feed in realtime.

Agree - but it is too much work for a busy control team to play movie producer and reroute that sort of stuff.  Sorry.  Need more $ for that.

Offline dave k

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This video stream doesn't seem to be working anymore. Have cleared the cache on all browsers and re-loaded with no luck. Is anyone else having this problem?

Offline Chandonn

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This video stream doesn't seem to be working anymore. Have cleared the cache on all browsers and re-loaded with no luck. Is anyone else having this problem?


I haven't seen it up in weeks.  I guess it's over.

Offline NavySpaceFan

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There is a note on the site saying that the camera is "temporarily unavailable, please check back again later."
<----First launch of DISCOVERY, STS-41D!!!!

Offline penguin44

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Not sure this is the correct thread for it but it seemed like a good place since you were talking about things being streamed to ISS.  How cool would it be to float and watch star trek and then see that you are orbiting Earth.

A report from trekmovie.com states that

NASA beams Star Trek to ISS
Speaking of special screenings of Star Trek, yesterday NASA sent out a press release announcing that Paramount Pictures transferred "Star Trek" to NASA’s Mission Control in Houston, which then uplinked the film to the space station on Thursday, May 14 so that Trekkie astronaut Michael Barratt can watch it on his a laptop computer inside the Unity module. Of Trek Barratt is quoted saying:

I remember watching the original ‘Star Trek’ series and, like many of my NASA coworkers, was inspired by the idea of people from all nations coming together to explore space. Star Trek’ blended adventure, discovery, intelligence and story telling that assumes a positive future for humanity. The International Space Station is a real step in that direction, with many nations sharing in an adventure the world can be proud of.


Offline dave k

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Happy to say that the video stream has been working for the last couple of weeks. Every day a new view. Loved using vlc to record the solar arrays, using another program to speed it up 20x or so and watch it turn like a windmill with all the different lighting angles.
It's one thing to know it happens, it's another to actually see it :)

Offline rdale

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Video stream has no audio - audio stream working fine. I've contacted NASA.

Offline rdale

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Can someone else check the video stream? I'm still not getting any audio from it, but NASA says it is working fine. I am getting audio from the audio stream still though...

Online Ronsmytheiii

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Can someone else check the video stream? I'm still not getting any audio from it, but NASA says it is working fine. I am getting audio from the audio stream still though...

Its working now, an encoder apparently froze but now it is up again.

Offline rdale

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Thanks - for future reference, how did you figure that out?

Online Ronsmytheiii

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Thanks - for future reference, how did you figure that out?

e-mail to Allard Beutel  ;D

Offline rdale

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And you are hearing audio on the ISS Video feed? The one that shows the world map page? I'm still only getting it on the mission audio feed.

If I'm interpreting the clock on gmplayer, the video feed has been up for 35 hours since a reset.
« Last Edit: 09/16/2009 02:25 am by rdale »

Offline rdale

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I had it up all day with a voice-activated recorder and got nothing, while the audio-only feed worked fine. Can anyone other than Ronsmytheiii (speaking of - what type of system are you using, Mac or PC or something else?) hear the audio while playing the video stream?

Offline joncz

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http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/isslivestream.asx

I have audio and video

XP SP3 with VLC 0.9.4

Offline rdale

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I'm not that familiar with VLC, but I booted that up and entered that URL but I'm getting the regular NASA TV feed for some reason. Thanks for the confirmation though, I'll keep troubleshooting.

mms://a1709.l1856953708.c18569.g.lm.akamaistream.net/D/1709/18569/v0001/reflector:53708 is the ISS feed URL, that I can bring up in VLC but still no audio.

Using VLC with the mms: URL, I go to the audio properties and it says:

Stream 0
Type: Audio
Codec: wma2
Channels: ERROR
Sample rate: 22050 Hz
Bits per sample:  16

Any VLC experts that can PM me offline to not clutter this thread so I can get it working?



« Last Edit: 09/16/2009 01:26 pm by rdale »

Offline rdale

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Well, the "ERROR" message means nothing, I can play the audio-only stream in VLC just fine and the Codec page says the same thing.

I just can't get the combination of audio and video on the same source using Real, WMP and VLC with mms://a1709.l1856953708.c18569.g.lm.akamaistream.net/D/1709/18569/v0001/reflector:53708 , so still looking for help.

Offline rdale

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Sounds like joncz was seeing the ISS Hour on regular NASA TV... So still looking for some help verifying audio & video on the ISS Video stream so I can make more contact with NASA (they say it's been fine all along.)

Online AnalogMan

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Sounds like joncz was seeing the ISS Hour on regular NASA TV... So still looking for some help verifying audio & video on the ISS Video stream so I can make more contact with NASA (they say it's been fine all along.)

I cannot hear audio on the ISS video feed either (just checked now).  That's using Windows Media Player or RealPlayer under Vista.  Mission audio only feed is fine.

Offline rdale

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NASA insists that they hear audio at http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/index.html?param=station but I still get nothing... Any help from another source that can verify?

Offline mdrapp

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I just checked and I'm hearing audio (or at least static) in addition to seeing the video.  I'm using Flip4Mac (WMV for Quicktime) on a Mac at the moment.
--Michael

Offline rdale

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I've heard static - I don't hear voice though...

Offline Avron

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I see zero video other than a wavy pattern and no audio

Offline rdale

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That's because they are in sleep - so they show exterior views. There will be no more audio regardless.

You'll have to try again tomorrow, after around 0600UTC (2am EDT)
« Last Edit: 09/21/2009 11:17 pm by rdale »

Offline psloss

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That's because they are in sleep - so they show exterior views. There will be no more audio regardless.

You'll have to try again tomorrow, after around 0600UTC (2am EDT)
I'm still trying to get back to Eastern time...currently seeing the familiar LOS graphic after the night-side dark video...

Offline Avron

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Thanks.. I see the same now.

Offline psloss

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FWIW, I'm hearing air-to-ground this morning...just heard an exchange with Gennady about a conference.

Offline psloss

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OK, finally dayside...currently using one of the cameras on the port side of the truss...
« Last Edit: 09/22/2009 01:22 pm by psloss »

Online AnalogMan

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rdale - for what its worth I can now (as I post this) hear audio on the ISS video stream (either embedded in the NASA web page, or in a stand-alone player).  I've done nothing to my system since I last posted, so can only assume the feed end has changed.

Offline rdale

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Thanks, I just caught the end of ISS hour and that has not been on the feed for a while, so it sounds like they may have fixed the issue. I appreciate the assistance, especially when they kept telling me it was working ;)

Offline rdale

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Well - now I don't know.

I hear Russian comms on the mission audio channel, but the video is showing the world map and is quiet. Anyone else?

Online AnalogMan

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Well - now I don't know.

I hear Russian comms on the mission audio channel, but the video is showing the world map and is quiet. Anyone else?

Yep - world map video during the DPC is silent (apart from low level white noise), whereas mission audio channel is fine.  So back to how it was again!

Offline rdale

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Ahhh -- finally. NASA confirmed an audio problem on the mission video channel, and they are working on a fix, but no ETA.

Offline rdale

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Finally fixed! The ISS video link now includes audio too...

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