Will Perseverance's landing be live streamed?

Question

I know that the launch will be live streamed, but I am interested in the landing.

Is there a plan to make it possible for the general public to get access to landing video as soon as mission control? Will a landing video be broadcasted back to Earth during the actual landing?

Answers to Could "live" video be transmitted from Mars? suggest this is theoretically possible.

The landing will be recorded in high quality, but Persy will have 2 Mbps to transmit it, so if it's live we'll only have one high quality video, or a few with bad quality https://www.businessinsider.fr/us/nasa-mars-perseverance-rover-seven-minutes-terror-landing-video-2020-7 https://everydayastronaut.com/perseverance-vs-curiosity-whats-new/ — Speedphoenix, Jul 26 '20 at 10:17

1729 · Accepted Answer · 2020-07-26T05:33:38.393

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I found this article for the 2012 Curiosity rover launch which stated that

NASA Television will be broadcasting live coverage of Curiosity's landing on Aug. 5 beginning at 8 p.m. EDT

(I also found this video showing the mission control room during the landing but I don't know if that was shown live)

So, I suppose that it is probable that we will see live coverage of the landing for the Perseverance rover.

Edit: As @uhoh helpfully states, this article shows that

NASA added 6 HD video cameras to its next Mars rover so we can all watch the first footage of a spacecraft landing on another planet

edited Jul 26 '20 at 05:33

answered Jul 25 '20 at 11:00

1729

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It seems to me the OP was asking for video of the landing, not video of mission control during the landing – Jul 25 '20 at 11:30
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I was unable to find any information regarding if there will be a video of the landing, but if the mission control is shown then the general public will get access to the landing video as soon as mission control. – 1729 Jul 25 '20 at 11:33
I think you can add a few quotes from NASA added 6 HD video cameras to its next Mars rover so we can all watch the first footage of a spacecraft landing on another planet and have a complete, definitive answer. – uhoh Jul 25 '20 at 17:59
But it will certainly not be live - from the article @uhoh suggests "After stashing gigabytes' worth on unprecedented footage, NASA doesn't expect to see it on Earth very quickly. "We'll bring that imagery back over the first couple weeks on the surface," Wallace said." – Wiggo the Wookie Jul 26 '20 at 09:07
@WiggotheWookie that may apply specifically to HD video, but 1) the video streams from those cameras could also be transmitted live with reduced resolution. That's common, even SpaceX live videos were uploaded later in higher resolution and 2) Perseverance has 23 cameras and those six may not be the only ones capable of providing video! – uhoh Jul 26 '20 at 12:39

fraxinus · Answer 2 · 2020-07-26T10:22:56.640

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Answers to Could "live" video be transmitted from Mars? suggest this is theoretically possible.

No, they don't.

Imagine having 1-3m (or more) parabolic antenna deployed during landing and precisely directed to Earth.

An aerodynamic nightmare.

Edit: According to https://mars.nasa.gov/mars2020/spacecraft/rover/communications/ there is an "up to 2 megabits per second" to the relayer orbiter, so a medicore real-time video may be possible.

edited Jul 26 '20 at 10:22

answered Jul 25 '20 at 23:58

fraxinus

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The time and date for Perseverance's EDL (entry, descent and landing) is fixed and was chosen for factors including communications. Likely there will be a Mars orbiting satellite overhead that will pick up UHF or VHF signals and relay them back to Earth a bit like the MarCO cubesats and MRO did for InSight 1, 2, 3 and especially 4! So there's no need for Perseverance to deploy a large antenna. – uhoh Jul 26 '20 at 01:04
Yeah, that's what relay spacecrafts are for. – zabop Jul 26 '20 at 09:14
Also see this answer to How could the landing date of Perseverance Rover be fixed irrespective of 26 days launch window? – uhoh Aug 01 '20 at 01:32

Will Perseverance's landing be live streamed?

2 Answers2