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NASA's Perseverance rover sends stunning images

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Re: NASA's Perseverance rover sends stunning images

#31
post #19

Does anyone know what type of data compression is being used to transmit these images? There's been huge progress since the last rover.

I'm speculating here, but I think these images are transmitted in some kind of raw format, or close to it, making them more resilient to data corruption. Compressed images will incur greater data loss when compressed, compared to raw images where you might lose a few image blocks at a time.

Naively, I'd doubt that. There are all kinds of error correcting codes to deal with that and you'd end up with a substantial increase in effective bandwidth (with the compression). There may be error correction built in to the protocol itself already.

Re: NASA's Perseverance rover sends stunning images

#32
post #11
post #9

Is there a single good official site to get Perseverance media from?

https://mars.nasa.gov/mars2020/multimedia/raw-images/ Would be the best place to get images/videos from Perseverance.

I want to see that little helicopter fly! I scoured the site and as yet can't find any images of it, when I thought they were going to take mutual selfies -- heli of the rover and vice versa.

Re: NASA's Perseverance rover sends stunning images

#33
post #19

Does anyone know what type of data compression is being used to transmit these images? There's been huge progress since the last rover.

I'm speculating here, but I think these images are transmitted in some kind of raw format, or close to it, making them more resilient to data corruption. Compressed images will incur greater data loss when compressed, compared to raw images where you might lose a few image blocks at a time.

Compression can also include backup/padding/parity data to correct for errors and transmission losses.

Re: NASA's Perseverance rover sends stunning images

#34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They use the same kind of compression as the last mission. JP2, I believe. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JPEG_2000 I'm not sure that data compression has progressed that much since Curiosity in 2012 or Insight in 2018. There have been some formats that have improved compression at the expense of large amounts of memory or processing power, but neither of those are abundant on a rad-hardened processor. Neither is elec…

Any idea how much storage it has? I would think it'd have to be TBs to store all these images, logs, and other data for years while making sure they have enough memory so that they're not limited and if the rover stays there for longer than intended.

Why would it need to continue to store things after successful receipt on Earth?

Re: NASA's Perseverance rover sends stunning images

#35

All the extraterrestrial expansion, dream of Men to conquer Space, star track enterprise! I'm pessimistic that we will ever leave our solar system, and if so in 1000 years, I do not care. Hopefully people learn how tiny our bubble is and protect our environment more. The Martian environment looks so boring -- as a replacement for polluted Earth. (We will pollute Mars faster than Earth). I'm living at the ocean, tryin…

I admire your efforts to clean. But unfortunately it’s pointless. There are entire million and billion population countries that treat oceans as waste baskets, simply because they don’t know better.

I’ve talked to fishermen in rural Thailand and they don’t have waste collection. So they take their trash every day and just dump it in the middle of the ocean somewhere. They didn’t understand why that was a problem when I discussed it with them.

Re: NASA's Perseverance rover sends stunning images

#36

All the extraterrestrial expansion, dream of Men to conquer Space, star track enterprise! I'm pessimistic that we will ever leave our solar system, and if so in 1000 years, I do not care. Hopefully people learn how tiny our bubble is and protect our environment more. The Martian environment looks so boring -- as a replacement for polluted Earth. (We will pollute Mars faster than Earth). I'm living at the ocean, tryin…

The only solution is the spread of information and education. That's the only thing that will help. We must reach all people and present them with the evidence on environmental degradation. The planet is ours to protect and cherish, and I'm confident this is an achievable goal if we act fast. By advocating for access to internet and education at global scale! Starting with our homes.

Re: NASA's Perseverance rover sends stunning images

#37
This is a video presenting ten milestone images that revealed what we've learned about Mars after decades of exploration prior to the landing of Perseverance [1]. It's nice to see the evolution of image resolutions of the Red Planet.

[1]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1eFMzO3iPc

Re: NASA's Perseverance rover sends stunning images

#39
post #35

All the extraterrestrial expansion, dream of Men to conquer Space, star track enterprise! I'm pessimistic that we will ever leave our solar system, and if so in 1000 years, I do not care. Hopefully people learn how tiny our bubble is and protect our environment more. The Martian environment looks so boring -- as a replacement for polluted Earth. (We will pollute Mars faster than Earth). I'm living at the ocean, tryin…

I admire your efforts to clean. But unfortunately it’s pointless. There are entire million and billion population countries that treat oceans as waste baskets, simply because they don’t know better. I’ve talked to fishermen in rural Thailand and they don’t have waste collection. So they take their trash every day and just dump it in the middle of the ocean somewhere. They didn’t understand why that was a problem when…

My imagination has a pretty big range for 'rural Thailand', do they have a safe way to dispose of it inland? Subsistence folks, to the extent that it might apply here, get a pass from me.

Re: NASA's Perseverance rover sends stunning images

#40
post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This project will cost $2.8 billion…over the 10-year life of the project. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_2020 In government terms? That is nothing. We’ll burn that much on defective F-35 fighters in a year. And we are not “just” assessing the mineral content of the soil—not even close. https://mars.nasa.gov/mars2020/mission/science/ (If you’re that offended by the cost, I will Venmo you the 0.1 cents per year thi…

You triggered the fuck out of me. The saving grace of the Joint Strike Jobs program is that maybe 1% of the people learned what to do next time.

Yes yes, I know, it’s trite to point out that boondoggle of a project.

Except…NASA apparently spent all of $80 million on a helicopter that will work on Mars. One has to wonder what the military-industrial complex could accomplish with a bit of financial discipline and oversight.

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