{"id":17903,"date":"2019-10-24T21:38:53","date_gmt":"2019-10-24T13:38:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/amazon-web-services-and-nasa-team-up-to-stream-video-from-space-via-the-cloud\/"},"modified":"2019-10-24T21:38:53","modified_gmt":"2019-10-24T13:38:53","slug":"amazon-web-services-and-nasa-team-up-to-stream-video-from-space-via-the-cloud","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/amazon-web-services-and-nasa-team-up-to-stream-video-from-space-via-the-cloud\/","title":{"rendered":"Amazon Web Services and NASA team up to stream video from space via the cloud"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"
Astronaut Andrew Morgan does a zero-gravity flip on the International Space Station with a push from his two NASA crewmates, Christina Koch and Jessica Meir. (NASA via YouTube)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Amazon Web Services and NASA have demonstrated how cloud-based video processing can distribute live streams from space, with a shout-out from the International Space Station.<\/p>\n

The demonstration took center stage today in Los Angeles at the annual meeting of the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers, or SMPTE.<\/p>\n

Barbara Lange, SMPTE\u2019s executive director, told GeekWire that the members of her organization have a professional and personal interest in telling the story of space travel through moving images.<\/p>\n

Previously: Amazon Web Services plays role in NASA\u2019s first ultra-HD live video from space<\/h4>\n

\u201cWe want to make sure that that story is a beautifully rendered story, and that there are no hiccups, and no pixelations, and no issues,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

That\u2019ll be a challenging task, especially when video is transmitted from far-out spaceships, or from the surface of the moon or Mars. In fact, ratty video from space is a classic cliche in science-fiction movies.<\/p>\n

AWS and NASA took an initial step two years ago when they demonstrated for the first time how 4K Ultra HD video could be transmitted live from the space station, using a UHD-capable video encoder from AWS Elemental.<\/p>\n

Since then, the equipment used to get that Ultra HD video has fallen victim to space radiation, said Josh Winstead, a technical marketing engineer at AWS Elemental. But today\u2019s demonstration delivered HD broadcast-quality video to the SMPTE gathering and the wide world of the Web.<\/p>\n

For today\u2019s show, most of the magic happened down on Earth. The video stream was delivered to Johnson Space Center in Houston in the usual way, via NASA\u2019s network of orbiting satellites and ground stations. But from there, the stream was transferred into Amazon Web Services\u2019 cloud computing network using AWS Elemental MediaConnect, transcoded using MediaLive, packaged with MediaPackage, and delivered with Amazon CloudFront.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re riding on the public internet for the last mile,\u201d Winstead said.<\/p>\n

Ninety percent of the video processing and transmission tasks that are usually done with studio equipment and satellites were done in the cloud instead.<\/p>\n

During today\u2019s video linkup with the SMPTE audience, NASA\u2019s astronauts on the space station discussed the future of off-world imagery.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s our duty to continue to produce imagery of all types \u2014 video imagery and still imagery \u2014 and we\u2019ll do it with integrity,\u201d said Andrew Morgan, who\u2019s been in orbit since July. \u201cAnd the more we put out there, the more real it becomes to everyone.\u201d<\/p>\n

Astronaut Christina Koch, who participated in the first all-female spacewalk with Jessica Meir last week, echoed Lange\u2019s comments about the importance of visual storytelling in space.<\/p>\n

\u201cAdding the personal stories behind the images can do so much to really bring it home,\u201d she said. \u201cThe emotion that we felt at the time shows that there was more to it than just the image captured.\u201d<\/p>\n

Koch and her crewmates get a regular supply of movies and other streaming content from Earth. But Meir, who started her stint on the station just last month, said their favorite thing to watch is their home planet, framed in the windows of the station\u2019s Cupola observation deck. \u201cThat view never gets old,\u201d Meir said.<\/p>\n

Looking ahead, Morgan said that augmented-reality tools like Microsoft\u2019s HoloLens headset are already playing a role in space station operations, and that virtual reality will be a must-have technology when astronauts travel through deep space on their way to Mars.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ll need that immersive technology from virtual reality to reproduce the sensation of being at home, or being in a different environment when we no longer can just look out the window and see the Earth below us,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\"Video
A schematic shows how video signals were received from the International Space Station and processed using cloud computing. Click on the image for a bigger version. (AWS Diagram)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Cloud-based video processing isn\u2019t just for spacefliers. Khawaja Shams, vice president of engineering at AWS Elemental, said the technology has plenty of earthly applications as well. It\u2019s likely to be significantly less expensive and more flexible than the traditional methods, he told GeekWire.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou don\u2019t have to have a reservation on a satellite or a long-life contract,\u201d Shams said. \u201cIt gives customers a lot of flexibility to provision an IP-based endpoint and use the pipe they already have as connectivity to stream the video content.\u201d<\/p>\n

Before coming to AWS Elemental, Shams spent more than seven years at NASA\u2019s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, working on Deep Space Network links to Mars spacecraft including the Phoenix Mars Lander and the Spirit, Opportunity and Curiosity rovers. He said he draws upon that experience for the AWS-NASA collaboration.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a lot of technical interchange and learning on both sides, on just how to operate mission-critical infrastructure,\u201d Shams said. \u201cI\u2019ve been one of the fortunate people to see it from both ends, on the commercial side and on the space side.\u201d<\/p>\n

And who knows? Maybe he and AWS Elemental will be on the case when the first men and women on Mars start streaming their small steps and giant leaps.<\/p>\n

For more about the engineering behind today\u2019s cloud-based video processing demonstration, check out Josh Winstead\u2019s posting on the AWS Media Blog.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Astronaut Andrew Morgan does a zero-gravity flip on the International Space Station with a push from his two NASA crewmates, Christina Koch and Jessica Meir. (NASA via YouTube) Amazon Web Services and NASA have demonstrated how cloud-based video processing can distribute live streams from space, with a shout-out from the International Space Station. The demonstration […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[4455,4526,4934,717,4935,190,21,4936,4937],"class_list":["post-17903","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-amazon-web-services","tag-aws","tag-aws-elemental","tag-international-space-station","tag-live-streaming","tag-nasa","tag-space","tag-streaming","tag-video-streaming"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17903"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17903"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17903\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17903"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17903"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17903"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}