Shuttle Cameras Yield Excellent Footage

Jivecat writes "All those extra cameras NASA has added to the Space Shuttle to watch for debris impacts have yielded what may be the coolest Shuttle launch footage ever. The forward-facing view from the right-hand SRB shows, at about the 2:58 mark, booster separation and Discovery zooming away. Other views are available at the main mission site."

Not "Windows Only" as

[CK2004PA]

the NASA site suggests. The MPlayer plugin for Firefox (same thing you use for CNN's video) works fine. Great footage.

Rocketcam

[amightywind]

Nice to see our government is looking out for the interests of all and protecting the freedom of all to access govt. publications by putting these in a proprietary format like Windows Media Video.

The camera supplier [eclipticenterprises.com] has a history of offering these amazing videos in MPEG format. Lets hope the new Discovery videos will be added to the last. The image of the orbiter/ET accelerating from the spent boosters is some of the most spectacular aerospace footage I have ever seen.

That was pretty cool.

[lpangelrob]

Something like 4m 30s of freefall (3:00-7:30) on that video. Very neat. Can someone with greater knowledge than I explain how the camera survived re-entry, or is there no re-entry at that altitude yet?

If you dig a little

[Render_Man]

on the main mission site linked to in the article, they have an mpeg posted of the seperation

http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/gallery/video/shuttle/ sts-121/mpg/srb_fd01h_ra.mpg [nasa.gov]

Re:excellent webcam quality

[trybywrench]

my logitech webcam has clearer imaging than the footage from these cameras

but your webcam isn't strapped onto a continuously exploding bomb hurtling through all layers of the atmosphere in a matter of minutes.

SRB's never technically leave...

[everphilski]

The SRB's never technically 'leave' the atmosphere so they can't re-enter. They are going pretty fast but not Mach 25 like the shuttle and station are doing on orbit. Maybe a few (2-4) Mach. Actually the shuttle goes quite slow while the SRB's are on because the atmosphere is so dense at low altitudes (the SRB's are only on for just over 2 minutes) because dynamic pressure builds up quickly ( a linear function of air density and a square of velocity ) so you keep your velocity at a fair clip until the atmosphere thins and then speed up. Long story short the SRB's aren't going that fast, and the cameras are in a good housing. The cam itself is made by these guys [eclipticenterprises.com]

Re:Nice to see...

[DarthTaco]

feel better?

http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/gallery/video/shuttle/ sts-121/mpg/srb_fd01h_ra.mpg [nasa.gov]

Re:Nice to see...

[everphilski]

just install the codecs for MPlayer. Unless you are too lazy ... worked for me last shuttle mission ...

Not to mention theora is still alpha software. Too new, still unproven, there is a perfectly good reason.

Re:That was pretty cool.

[CK2004PA]

No total re-entry at that altitude (otheriwse the entire booster would fry). Also, if you watch the entire footage you can see the parachute deployed. In addition I imagine NASA has some protective covering over the camera, to help a bit.

Re:I call fake

['nother poster]

Well, from a NASA website.

About 125 seconds after launch and at an altitude of about 150,000 feet, the SRB's burn out and are jettisoned from the ET. The jettison command originates from the Orbiter, and jettison occurs when the forward and aft attach points between the SRB's and ET are blown by explosive charges.

28 miles may not be space, per se, but it is pretty damn high.

You can see it break the sound barrier.

[Abcd1234]

Interestingly, watch closely, a couple minutes in, you can see pressure waves form small clouds on the leading edge of the shuttle as it breaks the sound barrier. *Very* cool stuff...

Re:In other news...

[ToxikFetus]

In other news, ranchers in Texas complain about finding an increased amount of cameras falling from space in their fields.

FYI, the camera landed in the water. Unless Texas has a disproportionate number of hydroponic ranches, I don't think NASA will be fielding too many of these complaints.

Re:SQUID!!!

[brownpau]

Pertinent video: http://mfile.akamai.com/18566/wmv/etouchsyst2.down load.akamai.com/18355/wm.nasa-global/sts-121/right _aft_srb_camera.asx [akamai.com]

Are you talking about that flurry of what looks like tentacles at around 7:38? I think you might have been seeing the lines from the parachute hitting the water and flowing past the camera.

Re:You can see it break the sound barrier.

[Anonymous Coward]

A.k.a. the Prandtl-Glauert singularity [wikipedia.org], at around 1:37 into the video.

How to download mms:// URIs under Linux

[YA_Python_dev]

Probably a lot of people already know this, but you can download (instead of just watching it in streaming) WMV files with a "mms://" URI under Linux using MPlayer.

Just do something like this:

mplayer mms://server.invalid/filename.wmv -dumpstream -dumpfile filename.wmv

This is useful if you have a connection too slow for live streaming or you simply want to do something with the downloaded file.

Re:worth watching

[Anonymous Coward]

And at the :45 mark you can see the NASA Sound Suppresion System kick in (aka water). http://www.nasa.gov/missions/shuttle/f_watertest.h tml [nasa.gov]

Some interesting moments timelined

[Goldenhawk]

There's a LOT of neat stuff in there. For example:

1:30-1:40 Mach transition (breaking the sound barrier - watch the nose)
2:39 a rather visible bit of debris flies right past the camera
2:58 separation from the orbiter/tank stack
3:59 as the booster tumbles, you can briefly spot the shuttle as a bright dot
5:18 you can see the smoke plume thru the upper atmosphere
7:13 some debris goes past the booster camera
7:17 you can see a shroud (parachute) line falling
7:25 you can very briefly see a chute
7:30 water entry
7:40 the chute falls into the water
8:00 as the booster floats, the chutes and shroud lines are clearly visible around the booster

Re:What happened to the camera in the water?

[Anonymous Coward]

They recover the whole booster, not just the camera.

As I understand it they do reuse at least part of the booster for a number of launches.

Temp Video Mirror

[fire-eyes]

http://fire-eyes.org/temp/sts-121/ [fire-eyes.org]

let me know if you can find any others, especially if you can find the full high quality version (one of the mpegs above is a small clip of the high quality version).

Re:Rant: Streaming Video Blows Goats

[jelle]

mplayer -dumpstream

can do that without decompressing...

Re:excellent webcam quality

[enosys]

Yes, it has been resized, cropped and compressed. Someone else posted a link to an MPEG file from NASA that was twice the resolution. Apparently it was from an analog NTSC source. It was full of interlacing artifacts, and it had black bars on both sides. Whoever released the WMV apparently just discarded one set of fields and halved the horizontal resolution instead of deinterlacing. They also cropped to remove the black bars and compressed it to a pretty low bitrate.

Re:Belly of shuttle

[EnderGT]

New tiles vs. Old tiles.

The heat shield tiles are designed to be reused for several missions. If they fail inspection after a mission, they are replaced prior to the next mission.

Re:Wow.

[BaronSprite]

From NASA:
Q. How much does it cost to launch a Space Shuttle?
A. The average cost to launch a Space Shuttle is about $450 million per mission.

http://www.nasa.gov/centers/kennedy/about/informat ion/shuttle_faq.html#10 [nasa.gov]

From Wiki:
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest
Budget US$225 million

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pirates_of_the_Caribb ean:_Dead_Man's_Chest [wikipedia.org]

I'll take the shuttle launch anyday over the common blockbuster.

Re:How to download mms:// URIs under Linux

[JahToasted]

Also there's a handy utility called mimms that works well for this. You do have to download the .asx file and open it with a text editor to get the mms:// address.

It's pretty annoying that oyu have ot jump through hoops just so you can watch a movie whenever you want. especially since if you download it you're going to save them badwidth in the long run.

Anyways I'm doing this right now (remove spaces in the URL):

mimms mms://a366.v18566f.c18566.g.vm.akamaistream.net/7/ 366/18566/v0001/etouchsyst2.download.akamai.com/18 355/wm.nasa-global/sts-121/right_aft_srb_camera.wm v

Re:How do they keep it afloat?

[johnny cashed]

When they land tail first, the air(or gasses left over from combustion) gets trapped in the tube and this is what makes the SRB buoyant. I did notice from the rear camera view, that the SRB appears to almost get horizontal right after landing, but it still seems to remained pitched at such an angle that gas should still be contained inside. Then it settles in an upright orientation. Check this out: http://www.nasa.gov/centers/kennedy/pdf/146685main _srb-et.pdf [nasa.gov] And: http://www.spawar.navy.mil/robots/undersea/srbnp/s rbnp.html [navy.mil]

BitTorrent of .mov videos

[adpowers]

Here are the links to the two SRB cameras (hopefully this works):

right_aft_srb_camera.mov.torrent [andrewhitchcock.org]
right_forward_srb_camera.mov.torrent [andrewhitchcock.org]

There is something wrong with my MIME types, so save the file as and, if necessary, rename to .torrent.

Re:Camera to document tile damage?

[Anonymous Coward]

The tiles are modular. each with its own little barcode. The heat of re-entry is quite murderous to the surface of these tiles, and as they heat up the outer surface will oxidize and not look as glossy. Ever see the heat shield on an Apollo capsule? Looks very similar. Tiles in high stress/wear areas are more likely to detach from the orbiter, and their shiny black replacements can be seen in an up close view. The reasoning goes, if the tile is still good, if a bit cloudy, why replace it? It's an unnecessary expense to the taxpayer, and painting the tiles would add weight, cost, and have the paint burn away on re-entry.

I'm sorry but you'll just have to live with an unattractive but working heat shield.

Re:Some interesting moments timelined

[Anonymous Coward]

Or maybe he just watched the damn clip and looked at the timer in his player, how about that?

Just because you're too dim-witted to do it, doesn't mean everyone is.