Visual Monitoring Camera: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 16:56, 4 November 2016

Revision as of 21:22, 4 November 2016

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'''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 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.<ReF>[http://sci.esa.int/mars-express/57864-mars-webcam-goes-pro/</ref> The Mars webcam was born and proved hugely popular with the public, offering wide-angle shots of Mars on regular basis.<reF>[http://sci.esa.int/mars-express/57864-mars-webcam-goes-pro/</ref> 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.<ReF>[http://sci.esa.int/mars-express/57864-mars-webcam-goes-pro/]</ref> The camera now having produced over 19,000 images by 2016, will continue to have images offered to the public.<reF>[http://sci.esa.int/mars-express/57864-mars-webcam-goes-pro/]</ref>

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, thefor lastexample there was one planned for 25–27 May 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>

== Technical specifications<ref>VMC technical specifications - http://blogs.esa.int/vmc/faq/</ref> ==

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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>

== External resources ==

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

==Science instrument==

Te Planetary Sciences Group of the University of the Basque is conducting a two-year mission using the Mars webcam.<reF>[http://sci.esa.int/mars-express/57864-mars-webcam-goes-pro/</ref>

==References ==