![]() ![]() Indeed, the clue is in the name: VMC = Visual Monitoring Camera.įor Mars Express, the part of our mission that required the use of a camera was the release of the Beagle 2 Lander. However, there are occasions on some missions where an activity considered so critical that telemetry alone is not enough, we need to be able to really see – visually – what is going on so we can be sure it has worked correctly, or if there is a problem, to be able to see what has happened to enable us to try and fix it. It also shows why the telemetry sent back to the mission control centre is so vital to understanding what the spacecraft is actually doing. This is a limitation we accept as part of sending things out into space and operating them remotely. The changing numbers on the screen are all we have to go on. ![]() Finally, we can see that the power being generated by the arrays themselves is also changing. ![]() What we really mean is that on the mission control system computer screen, we can see that the parameters that correspond to readings from sensors on the solar array drive motors reporting that the voltage going to the motors is changing, and that the power being consumed by the motors is changing. However, this telemetry is in effect just numbers on our computer screens that come from the sensors all over the spacecraft.įor example, if we were to command the solar arrays to turn, we can say that we can ‘see the arrays turning’. We overcome this problem by having huge amounts of telemetry data transmitted back to us here on Earth to give us details about what every component on board the spacecraft is doing. That purpose is to help overcome one of the challenges faced when flying spacecraft: we can’t actually see them. However don’t let the Webcam tag fool you! It’s a serious piece of kit with a very real engineering purpose. We often refer to VMC as the ‘Mars Webcam’ since the images it takes are comparable in resolution and colour depth to those of a standard home webcam that you would have bought from your local PC store back in 2003 when the spacecraft was launched. ![]()
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