Visual Monitoring Camera: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 17:49, 6 March 2015

Revision as of 02:18, 7 March 2015

Line 1:

'''Visual Monitoring Camera'''<ref>http://blogs.esa.int/vmc/faq/</ref> (or Video Monitoring Camera<ref>http://www.lpi.usra.edu/vexag/mission_definition.pdf , p.3</ref>), 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 19th, 2003 at 8:31 UTC (9:31 CET).

After performing this task, VMC remained unused, having no scientific purposes.

Sometimes [[ESA]] started public campaigns inviting people to propose subjects to be shot by the camera, the last one planned for 25-27 mayMay 2015.<ref> VMC Imaging campaign 2015 - http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Operations/Have_you_ever_used_a_camera_on_board_an_interplanetary_spacecraft</ref>.

Line 22:

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,<ref>http://www.planetary.org/blogs/emily-lakdawalla/2012/12190600-mars-express-vmc.html</ref>, and all pictures taken till now are available for free download, including images of [[Beagle 2]] separation occurred in 2003.<ref>8 images of Beagle 2 separation - https://www.flickr.com/photos/esa_marswebcam/sets/72157632218100711/ </ref>.

Line 37:

Credit: ESA - European Space Agency, CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO''

==References ==

== External references ==

<references/>