Posted on 06/09/2022 8:05:59 AM PDT by BenLurkin
True- makes sense.
Doesn’t need to be real time as in streaming “live” during the flight. It just needs to have a normal video frame rate so you have a good sense of motion. The video files could be downloaded to Earth at any time after the flight rather than streaming during the flight. That’s my nitpicky nerdy answer. If by real time you just mean normal looking full frame rate video, then yes I heartily agree :)
The thing is, video cameras can be tiny these days and the files aren’t even really that big especially when they’re compressed. So it seems to me that a video camera would have been a small or even negligible extra burden on the design yet would have had the huge benefit of giving us flight video of the surface of friggin Mars!
Elon Musk would not have skipped the video camera...
A commercial drone here on the blue planet, even a toy or hobby drone has an IMU just like that. Should be able to manage attitude with that given a reasonably level takeoff to set the inertial position in the first place.
What I don’t understand, and I haven’t yet read about it, is how on “earth” do lithium batteries give any useful output after being cooled to -112°F overnight? Mine are useless at 20° without pre-heating.
maybe if elon gets his way we will have starlink sats in mars orbit and have video!!!, not sure just what the lag time between mars and earth is..
There you go. A single point failure will do it every time!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.