ISS Fan Club

Kenneth,

Just a minor correction to your post. INCO (Instrumentation and Communications Officer) and CATO are typically not allowed to move/alter the camera configurations while the crew is awake and working. This is especially true during Robotics and EVA activities, which, of course, happen nearly every day of a Space Shuttle mission. During these times, the crew is "prime" for camera control and they will point the cameras as they need to. CATO and INCO have some control over which video feeds from the on-board cameras are downlinked to the ground, but even this is usually dictated by some other need (EVA, Robotics, Maintenance, Science, etc). You are correct that PAO is responsible for which of those downlinked feeds gets shipped out on NASA TV.

I suspect this forum is aware of TDRSS communications limitations, but it is also worth mentioning. ISS and Shuttle do not have continuous comm through the Tracking and Data Relay Satellite System. Video is downlinked through both Shuttle and ISS Ku-Band antennas when this communication path is available (about 90% of the time during a shuttle mission). The path can be unavailable for a variety of reasons including: structural blockage between the antenna and the satellite, higher priority users, and thermal concerns (rare situations where the antenna system gets too hot and needs to be parked). When the Ku-system is LOS (Loss of Signal), NASA TV will typically cut to an shot of the one of the flight control rooms or play recorded video.

Kyle - KG4YUQ

It's nice to know different people need and have control of the cameras at various times. But that says nothing about the times during operations when the camera is just staring at the tops of passing clouds or the like.

Case in point. At the end of an EVA the guys were counting down the pressure and coming out of the air lock. Now I have seen people come out of an air lock before and know it isn't something top secret or whatever. But someone switched the view to a camera on the outside staring down past the empty SLP into a black void framed by the almost invisible edge of P2 or some such for 3 or 4 minutes. There were no operations involving the SLP at the time, only the guys coming out of the air lock, but the black void was the item on the agenda at the time. The view switched back to the air lock hatch just after they stepped back into the Quest vestibule. I have trouble imagining a technical reason for that.

It is hard to know exactly why the NASA-TV image switched. Could be the air lock shot became unavailable due to loss of ISS Ku coverage but that the Shuttle video was still available and that was the "best shot" available at the time. Sometimes they have 4 shots to pick from and when shuttle is there, that can go up to 8. Unfortunately, the number of shots can be as low a 2 and then you don't have much of a choice at all (especially if ISS is in eclipse). Could be the PAO video operator prefers clouds for some reason ;)

Kenneth - N5VHO
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