AN ORDINARY CAMERA IN AN EXTRAORDINARY LOCATION: OUTREACH WITH THE MARS WEBCAM

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AN ORDINARY CAMERA IN AN EXTRAORDINARY LOCATION: OUTREACH WITH THE MARS WEBCAM

T. Ormston

VEGA, Darmstadt, Germany, [email protected]

M. Denis ESA, Darmstadt, Germany, [email protected]

D. Scuka

EJR-Quartz, Darmstadt, Germany, [email protected]

The European Space Agency’s Mars Express mission was launched in 2003 and was Europe’s first mission to Mars. On-board was a small camera designed to provide ‘visual telemetry’ of the separation of the Beagle-2 lander. After achieving its goal it was shut down while the primary science mission of Mars Express got underway. In 2007 this camera was reactivated by the flight control team of Mars Express for the purpose of providing public education and outreach – turning it into the ‘Mars Webcam’.

The camera is a small, 640x480 pixel colour CMOS camera with a wide-angle 30ºx40º field of view. This makes it very similar in almost every way to the average home PC webcam. The major difference is that this webcam is not in an average location but is instead in orbit around Mars. On a strict basis of non-interference with the primary science activities, the camera is turned on to provide beautiful and interesting wide-angle views of the planet below.

A highly automated process ensures that the observations are scheduled on the spacecraft and then uploaded to the Internet as rapidly as possible. There is no intermediate stage, so that visitors to the Mars Webcam blog serve as 'citizen scientists'. Full raw datasets and processing instructions are provided along with a mechanism to allow visitors to comment on the blog. Members of the public are encouraged to use this either in a personal or educational context and work with the images. We then take their excellent work and showcase it back on the blog. We even apply techniques developed by them to improve the data and webcam experience for others.

The accessibility and simplicity of the images also makes the data ideal for educational use, especially as educational projects can then be showcased on the site as inspiration for others. The oft-neglected target audience of space enthusiasts is also important as this allows them to participate as part of an interplanetary instrument team.

This paper will cover the history of the project and the technical background behind using the camera and linking the results to an accessible blog format. It will also cover the outreach successes of the project, some of the contributions from the Mars Webcam community, opportunities to use and work with the Mars Webcam and plans for future uses of the camera.

INTRODUCTION The European Space Agency’s Mars Express

mission was launched in 2003 and was Europe’s first mission to Mars. On-board was the Visual Monitoring Camera (VMC), a small camera designed to provide ‘visual telemetry’ of the separation of the Beagle-2 lander. This camera was reactivated for the purpose of providing public education and outreach – turning it into the ‘Mars Webcam’.

This paper will describe the generic VMC hardware and capabilities, followed by an overview of the use of the VMC on Mars Express: its original purpose and its reactivation as the Mars Webcam. The current use of the camera as the Mars Webcam will then be described, including the routine image processing and upload concept and some highlights of special outreach activities performed with the VMC.

THE VISUAL MONITORING CAMERA The Visual Monitoring Camera (VMC) unit is a

standard visual telemetry device produced by OIP Sensor Systems of Belgium. The design, and variations upon it, have flown on several ESA missions to date, including Ariane 502, Cluster-II, XMM-Newton and Herschel-Planck. The main purpose of these cameras was to monitor deployment events or other spacecraft activities where visual feedback is possible. This “visual telemetry” proved to be far more effective than fitting numerous traditional telemetry sensors (such as thermistors or contact probes) to a deployment mechanism. Just a few frames from a camera can give information on the success or failure mode of the mechanism and in separation events even give flight dynamics information on separation trajectories. This comes at the price of added mass, complexity and cost compared to traditional sensors but, as will be

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described, the design of the unit has been tailored to minimize these additions.

Fig. I: A complete VMC unit, of the type flown on Mars

Express, with one Euro coin for size comparison. The IRIS-1 sensor/camera system-on-a-chip is fitted

inside a housing with power support and data interface equipment to become VMC. The completed unit is completely self contained and has a mass of 430g, with a size of 65x60x108mm. This compact and light enclosure helps reduce the design impact of adding a monitoring camera to the spacecraft. The first generation VMC used on Mars Express has a basic serial connection to the data bus with only a single image buffer. Current versions of the camera support (in a similar package) much more sophisticated features such as a multiple image buffer, SpaceWire data interface and CCSDS packet telemetry.

While in no way comparable to the HRSC (High Resolution Stereo Camera) instrument of Mars Express, the camera still produces impressive images for such a resource-light package. The IRIS-1 sensor is capable of producing 640x480 pixel images with 8 bits per pixel sampling depth. The camera produces grayscale images by default but can be fitted (as with the Mars Express unit) with a Bayer pattern filter to allow post-processing to interpolate colour information from the images. The sensor readout time is 100ms, but with the transfer of the data buffer via serial link to the Mars Express mass memory the minimum real interval between images is approximately 38 seconds. The sensor is fitted with an objective that in the case of Mars Express gives sharp images from a distance of 3m to infinity, with a very wide 30x40 degree field of view.

MARS EXPRESS VMC HISTORY

The VMC on Mars Express was originally added to the spacecraft to monitor the ejection of the Beagle-2 lander. This was both for public relations purposes and also due to the aforementioned ability of visual telemetry to give a far more comprehensive picture of such an event than conventional telemetry sensors. To

allow the event to be captured, the camera was mounted next to the separation mechanism of the lander, inclined towards the base of the lander to capture the separation event.

Beagle-2 Ejection

Fig. II: VMC Image of Beagle-2. This image was taken

shortly after Beagle-2 ejection and shows the lander (left) retreating from Mars Express. The purpose of the camera originally was to capture

the ejection event, although this use was limited slightly during the design of the separation operations. Due to the criticality of the event (Mars Express could not be captured into Mars orbit with the lander attached) it was decided to decouple the operations activities as much as possible, meaning that the camera could not be switched on until several seconds after the ejection event. This resulted in the capture of only 4 images of the retreating Beagle-2 lander; images which would prove to be the last images of the failed lander. The images nonetheless served their purpose, proving that the lander had successfully separated and was on the expected trajectory. During the investigation into the loss of the Beagle-2 lander, much study was conducted on the VMC images to assess whether any anomalies were visible.

VMC Re-Commissioning

Following three years of no VMC operations, the decision was taken to study the possibility of reviving the VMC camera in a completely different role. With its wide field of view, and unique (for a ‘webcam’) location around the planet Mars, it provided a very attractive prospect to ESA public relations and of interest even to the science community. However, as it had never been considered to revive the camera, it was as if starting from scratch with a new instrument – no routine planning or data analysis tools existed and the ability of the camera to even image a planet was a

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complete unknown. Therefore a commissioning campaign was initiated at the end of 2006 to test the camera’s abilities and the planning and data analysis processes that would be needed to successfully operate it.

Testing the Camera More of the constraints that were discovered in this

phase are outlined in the next section. The actual approach to operating the camera was also defined during this period and the automation tools built around this concept. The camera is relatively basic and therefore does not have a great deal of parameters to test in the commissioning phase. In fact the two primary parameters are the number of images to be captured and the exposure duration. The first tests covered a wide range of exposure times to try and empirically derive a good generic set of timings. The exposure range of the camera runs from 0.4 milliseconds to 162.8 milliseconds in 0.8 millisecond steps, then from 200 milliseconds to 95800 milliseconds in 400 millisecond steps. A spread right across these ranges was initially programmed but it was then found that the planet was much brighter than expected and overexposed all but the shortest exposure times. A closer packed spread of images was taken at the shortest exposure times, allowing characterization of the planet’s brightness at different exposures. The test campaign also tested the commanding and data transfer of the camera and allowed procedures to be re-tested and updated for routine operations. These tests were all a success and gave the green light to routine operations.

Fig. III: The first ever image of Mars captured by the

VMC on Mars Express, on 26 February 2007. Testing the Outreach Another avenue that was tested during the re-

commissioning was the outreach possibility of the camera. To this effect, it was agreed that the VMC re-commissioning would culminate by supporting an

outreach project. Three undergraduate science students in a French Lycée had selected as a Personal Project the discussion of a question that leaves no young – or less young – space fan indifferent: “Will humanity set foot on Mars during the 21st century?” The dissertation for this type of Project has to be supported by an experiment of some kind, which was difficult to find considering the ambition of their subject. The students involved had the idea of contacting the Mars Express team for support. We jointly decided that their experiment would be the first to use VMC images. Their responsibility was to design the experiment by understanding and explaining in their report how this picture would be taken with the Mars Express spacecraft and the VMC. The control team’s responsibility was to deliver initial images image ‘upon request’, so to say, for an educational purpose. If, already in 2007, unknown young students from a small town in France could receive an image of Mars just for their use, then it could be reasonably argued that the conquest of Mars had seriously started and, with some extrapolation, this line of argument became the main part of their dissertation, that humanity would step on Mars before year 2100. Quod erat demonstrandum.

REY Sonia SOLEILHAVOUP Olivier SOLEILHAVOUP Isabelle classe de 1ère S 1

TRAVAUX PERSONNELS ENCADRES

L’HOMME MARCHERA-T-IL SUR MARS AU XXIème SIECLE ?

Lycée Saint-Joseph Janvier 2007Périgueux

Fig. IV: The cover of the first outreach work performed

with VMC - a French school project based on the first images. The first VMC picture was taken, but Mars was not

there because of a sign error in angle of the camera offset – not the fault of the students, but a valuable lesson learned for the continuation of their studies. The picture was taken again, this time with full success. The three students presented the Project and the Mars picture

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resulting from their experiment, answering “yes” to their self-chosen question…and received an outstanding mark!

ROUTINE VMC OPERATIONS

The VMC camera is operated as an opportunistic tool for public relations and outreach, as opposed to one of the science instruments on Mars Express. Since the initial commissioning in 2007, VMC has operated nearly continuously. VMC operations are always scheduled under the guideline that it must not interfere with the primary science mission of the spacecraft, for example by violating spacecraft constraints, consuming otherwise required planning resources, or hampering the work of the Flight Control Team.

VMC Scheduling and Constraints

VMC observations are added to Mars Express activities whenever possible. This is governed by the various constraints which must be satisfied to guarantee zero impact to the ongoing science mission.

The primary constraints to be satisfied, from lowest to highest impact on VMC operations, are:

1. Power The power demand of VMC is very low, at

approximately 3W average consumption. Given the considerably higher consumption of other instruments and platform equipment, the power consumption of VMC is considered largely negligible, although it is still modeled for safety during the planning process.

2. Data The images produced by VMC are relatively

compact, but still use up 302 kbytes per image. If multiple images are captured during an observation this can still build up to a non-negligible data volume. While there is usually enough space in the on-board mass memory to accommodate this there is still a problem with scheduling it for dump to ground.

3. Commanding With finite uplink opportunities and a finite storage

space for commands on board the spacecraft there is a limitation on the number of commands that can be allocated to VMC. This also limits the number of images that can be captured in a given observation as each image requires at least one command. In future automated ‘macro-commands’ on-board are being considered to reduce the impact of this constraint.

4. Pointing Because VMC was designed to monitor Beagle-2

ejection, it is inclined 19 degrees from the normal view direction of the other science instruments. Therefore a special attitude is required that places this boresight

directed at the centre of Mars. Unfortunately this is incompatible with communications or science attitudes and so a special pointing must be made for each observation, along with slews to and from that pointing, limiting the maximum duration of an observation to minimize impacting the routine spacecraft timeline. Since the pointing is inertially fixed, the remaining degree-of-freedom of the spacecraft body can be used to ensure power-optimised pointing of the solar arrays throughout the observation.

5. Spacecraft Data Bus The most limiting constraint on VMC operations is

that it cannot be used with any other instruments on Mars Express. This is due to the very simple data interface of VMC that cannot be operated with other instruments that have data interfaces designed to share bandwidth in a store-and-forward manner (to best share the data bus). If VMC has data, it will send it regardless of any other waiting data from other instruments, blocking their transmission.

Once all of these constraints have been satisfied the

remaining windows are used for VMC, giving a usual range of 1 to 20 VMC observations in a month. These observations are usually close to apocentre of the Mars Express orbit, after thruster firings. This is a highly undesirable period for other instruments but has no impact on VMC, giving the characteristic full-disc images of Mars.

A Typical VMC Observation

Once a window has been identified the following stages of a VMC observation are largely automatic. The process has been highly automated by tools developed within the operations team to ensure that routine VMC operations do not load the engineering time of the team. The various stages of an observation are as follows:

1. Initial Planning The slots identified are automatically converted into

command files, based on a standard VMC observation profile. This means as many images as fit in the window, with a looping set of 2 to 4 exposure durations (to ensure at least one is appropriate). The exposure settings may be shifted on a monthly basis if the previous month’s images were poorly exposed. If data is a major constraint then the number of images in the observation can also be limited at this stage.

2. Execution & Downlink Once the command file is submitted to the Mars

Express Mission Planning it is treated automatically and merged with all other spacecraft commanding. This includes scheduling a window after the observation where data can be downlinked to ground while ensuring

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enough space is available for the primary science data downlink.

3. Data Retrieval & Publishing An automated task continually checks for new VMC

data dumps. If one is detected then it retrieves the downlinked data and extracts images from it. It performs automated pre-processing on the images, developed from amateur contributions. Finally the images are packaged up with their raw data and a Celestia location file (showing where Mars Express was when the images were captured) and automatically posted to the Mars Webcam blog (http://www.esa.int/vmc) and to the Mars Webcam Twitter feed (http://www.twitter.com/esamarswebcam); Twitter is an extremely popular social networking platform.

OUTREACH FROM THE MARS WEBCAM

‘Mars Webcam’ was the name given for outreach activities from VMC – presented as a type of citizen-science project in which a basic data service is provided by a space agency but the highlights come from an amateur community. The reason it is called a webcam is not just its technical capabilities (which are almost identical to a common webcam) but also the way it is used – as an opportunistic camera rather than an official science instrument.

The target audience is the general public but specifically catering for people with a particular interest in space and astronomy. This often-neglected ‘interested amateur’ community largely comprises people who want to be more involved in space exploration. The ‘Mars Webcam’ project allows them direct access to real data ‘live’ from Mars and even gives them the chance to work with it and have their efforts published in a formal ESA web channel.

‘The Mars Webcam Blog’ – The Core Outreach Component

The core of the outreach provided by VMC is the Mars Webcam Blog (http://www.esa.int/vmc), which is maintained as part of ESA’s portfolio of web channels. ESA provides a number of blogs, based on the Lifetype open-source platform, to cover certain real-time events and activities – such as dockings or fly-bys – that lend themselves to this style of web coverage. Blogs are widely used as social networking and community building tools, and the ESA blog system enables content sharing, public commenting, discussion threads and easy linking.

Fig. V: A screenshot of The Mars Webcam Blog,

showing posts of public submissions and an image set. In the case of VMC, the blog system is well suited to

allowing collaborative access to update the site as well as allowing automated tools to update data and write new articles. This latter point is critical to the service provided by VMC – that there is no human ‘in-the-loop’ between the spacecraft and the blog, helping to reduce the resources needed to run the site. The tools mentioned before that perform the processing are fully automatic and will post an image set to the blog with no human interaction. Although the sets can be sporadic, this offers members of the public the chance to be the first people to see these particular images of Mars.

Observation Products After an observation has been completed and

dumped to ground by the spacecraft, the software will produce several products:

1. Pre-Processed Images For each image in the observation the software will

create a pre-processed PNG image file. This pre-processing involves extracting the image and the colour data and then performing some basic systematic enhancement such as saturation enhancement and sharpening. The techniques for this pre-processing are one of the strongest examples of the feedback from VMC outreach – the original images were basic grayscale conversions of the raw files but the images

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now produced are of much better quality due to processing techniques suggested and written by the amateur community.

2. Pre-Processed Images After initial processing the raw binary data for each

image is written to a file and all of these files packaged into a zip archive for those that wish to use the raw data.

3. Celestia File A Celestia file is produced automatically for every

VMC observation. Celestia is a free space simulation that allows excellent visualisation of the Mars environment. It allows scripts to be written, such as that for VMC. For each observation a script is produced that places the observer in the simulation at the same position above Mars as Mars Express during the observation. This allows comparisons to be made between the images and the simulated (and labelled) features shown on Celestia.

Online Products After the basic files are created from an observation

there are three notifications made online of new images being available:

1. Online Gallery All of the files produced are uploaded to a

gallery/image database section of the blog. This is sorted by month, allowing users to find any image, Celestia file or raw file archive from the history of VMC.

2. Blog Post A post on the front page of the blog is automatically

made for each image set, including a preview of the observation images, links to the gallery and a short summary of the characteristics of the observation (capture date, altitude, dump date). Image sets are normally posted to the blog within 24 hours of acquisition; in the past year, it has happened on several occasions that no higher-priority data were queued for download (and one-way light time was just a few minutes) and an image set was autopublished to the public web within 60 minutes of acquisition at Mars.

The blog system creates an RSS feed of these posts so any RSS client can be used to keep up-to-date with the imaging activities of VMC.

Fig. VI: A typical blog article for a VMC image set.

Note the details of the observation, showing how ‘new’ the images are. 3. Twitter Notification An experimental new feature is the ability of the

software to automatically post a notification to Twitter of a new observation. This further enhances the ability to follow VMC activities using modern social networking and Web 2.0 tools.

Public Submissions While the image sets are the central part of the blog

from the ESA side, the key purpose is to reach out to members of the public and involve them with the work of Mars exploration. The data provided above is meant to give members of the public the best possible access to the data available and entice them to take the basic ‘raw’ data products to the next step and process or interpret the data.

It is explicitly stated on the website that the real potential of VMC can only be realised by members of the public getting involved and working with the data. There are no limits on the types of work that can be done and in the three years of VMC operations there has been an extremely diverse range of submissions, including image processing scripts, detailed analysis of surface features, tutorials, artwork involving the images and even a poem.

The contributors who do get involved in this way often produce further works and are very proud to have their work published on an ESA website. It is beneficial to both parties because the contributors are excited to have their work published and the Mars Webcam Blog

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is able to showcase a wide range of exciting and often very original pieces of work and interpretations of data from Mars. Some highlights of the public submissions to the blog are given in the following chapter.

Special Projects

It is important that the VMC does not interfere with the daily operations of the Mars Express mission although in some cases there has been a strong enough case to cause some impact on the mission for a special project with VMC. Two such projects are presented below.

Full Orbit Movie On 27 May 2010 an entire orbit of Mars Express

operations was reserved purely for VMC operations. During this time the spacecraft constantly pointed VMC at the planet for a complete 7-hour orbit. VMC took images as rapidly as possible (every 45 seconds) as the spacecraft flew around its highly elliptical orbit around Mars.

The result was an unprecedented set of 600 images that showed the spacecraft flying in from apocentre over the giant volcanoes of Mars, visibly picking up speed as it neared pericentre and passing over the terminator to the dark side of the planet. Following a dark pericentre the spacecraft exited over the North Pole of Mars and climbed back away to its apocentre, catching a transit of the moon Phobos across the planet’s disc just before the end of animation (see http://bit.ly/mars_orbit).

Fig. VII: An image of the Martian North Pole, captured

during the VMC full orbit movie. The animation was extremely successful for public

relations: it generated 8000 page views in the main ESA website, 1000 page views in the VMC blog, several thousand links, embeds and shares across YouTube, Facebook, Flickr, Twitter and other social networking platforms (where it has been viewed tens of thousands of times) and thousands of links and mentions by

individual blog and website owners. The video was republished by numerous top-tier media sites, including Wired magazine (USA), as well as numerous space fan sites such as Raumfaharer.net (Germany) and The Planetary Society blog (USA).

It not only raised the profile of VMC and the Mars Webcam blog but also gave a never-before-seen view of Mars. As well as capturing the imagination, the aim of the images was also to provide some real-world data for space education. The images show the real dynamics of an elliptical orbit, as well as the surface of another planet and a shot of its moon. It is hoped that the amateur community will realise and use these images in an educational context to bring space education to life.

Adopt-a-VMC Observation Another special project being investigated for VMC

is a scheme in which schools, clubs, universities or other organisations could be even further involved with the camera activities. The idea is that an organisation could ‘adopt’ a VMC observation and make it their own. Their name would be published along with the observation and they would be given access to the Mars Express flight control team by way of videoconferences before and after the observation.

In return for this increased participation in the VMC activities, the organisation would need to put forward a case for why they want to adopt the observation and also promise to provide some results of their ‘adoption’. This could take the form of a report, artwork or other VMC submission that could subsequently be published on the blog. This extra offering follows the theme of the Mars Webcam, i.e. ESA provides increased access to an asset around Mars in exchange for exciting, innovative and new works from members of the public which can be showcased online.

Fig. VIII: Comparison between a VMC and a Hubble

image made by students at the Humboldt Gymnasium as part of their project for the Adopt-a-VMC trial scheme. At present the project is in the early feasibility study

stage, having been tried with a school class and a school astronomy club. In both cases the results returned were excellent – comprehensive and of very high quality. However, there are some steps before this can become

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part of the standard VMC offering. This focuses on ensuring there is no undue impact on the availability of the Mars Express team – following the ‘no interference’ maxim of VMC. It needs to be checked that this can be followed while still providing a high quality and valuable offering to the participants.

RESULTS

The results of the Mars Webcam project to date are diverse, ranging from a growing image library that has been accessed hundreds of thousands of times, diverse public submissions of processed and analysed images and a growing community of regular contributors to school projects, seminars and other training and tips generated by interested Mars fans. This section will give an overview of these results, which, as the project is still very active, will only serve as a snapshot of the status at the time of writing.

Website results

The website has seen steady traffic by public visitors since launch, peaking at times when new or interesting images have been published. There has also been a number of exciting special features submitted by members of the public and re-published on the blog.

In the year ending 31 December 2009, the VMC Blog generated 139,442 page views (PV) and 36,493 unique visitors. Based on traffic in the first 8 months of 2010, the 2010 the full year totals should be over 167,000 and 38,000, respectively.

While these results alone are very positive and substantially justify the resources dedicated to VMC web efforts, there is also a significant multiplier effect seen in the number of reposts, shares, embeds and Web cross links of VMC material. Raw images sets as well as public submissions (34 in total to date including an impressive 16 so far in 2010) are regularly shared and promoted in several high-traffic sites such as UnMannedSpaceflight.com and The Planetary Society, as well as by numerous individuals and ESA web editors using Web 2.0 tools and platforms.

An excellent example of this occurred in January 2010, when a USA-based contributor, Mike Malaska, noticed an image set that had just been acquired and posted (11 January 2010 10:52 UT); he immediately processed several beautiful images and submitted them to the VMC editors and posted them in his Flickr account - all within 24 hours of acquisition at Mars. Links were widely spread using the VMC blog, twitter and in Flickr, generating thousands of page views.

In summary, the use of the Web in general, but in particular the VMC blog and Web 2.0 tools, to publicize VMC images has been hugely successful

Image Highlights Although VMC is a modest camera it has still taken

some amazing photographs, even before full processing. The examples below capture a glimpse of some of the exciting images taken by VMC during its history as the Mars Webcam.

It is worth noting that many of these images are not just interesting to the public and as an outreach tool, but also as a scientific tool. In many cases the unique point-of-view of VMC has lead to images which can provide important context information to the primary science users of Mars Express and the Mars science community in general.

Fig. IX: The Sun flares in the corner of this image of a

crescent Mars, a sight never seen from Earth. Captured 10 April 2008.

Fig. X: The Tharsis Montes volcano chain on Mars with

a large cloud trailing from Arsia Mons. Captured 2 July 2009.

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Fig. XI: The giant valley of Valles Marineris cuts across

the planet in this image from 19 July 2008.

Fig. XII: Looking down on the North Pole of Mars from

4125 km altitude on 8 August 2010.

Public Submissions The submissions by the public are too numerous and

varied to publish in this paper, but some highlights have been included below. The results from the public are the most impressive outcome of the Mars Webcam project and justify the project by getting members of the public integrated and involved with ESA’s exploration of Mars.

Of special note are the contributions which were not just on one image but which have lead to improvement of the core processing of VMC, making the pre-processed images even clearer and more amazing to first-time visitors. These efforts are in turn reused by amateur contributors to further enhance their work and submissions.

The following section highlights just a small set of contributions that could be easily replicated in this paper, the full archive is available on the Mars Webcam blog.

Fig. XIII: An early VMC submission from August 2008

by B. Dunford. This showcased the artistic potential of VMC images.

Fig. XIV: An amazing poster by E. Lakdawalla of the

Planetary Society. This shows 64 different views of Mars from VMC.

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Fig. XV: Public submission by M. Malaska in January

2010. This image was captured at Mars, published to the blog, downloaded, processed and posted to Flickr within 24 hours.

Fig. XVI: A detailed analysis of an image set from 9

October 2008. Submitted in 2010 by P. Wellman, it shows a comprehensive look at the features visible, especially haze shining in Valles Marineris. These four are just a tiny selection, covering some of

the different themes that have appeared in public submissions to the blog.

CONCLUSION

The Mars Webcam project is an ongoing success, an example of how operational tools and equipment can

also serve to provide outreach about space activities. Monitoring cameras such as VMC are becoming more common as the cost, mass and size of such systems decrease. In all cases it should also be considered that these cameras do not just serve their primary purpose but with minimal extra effort can also have successful dual roles as an outreach tools. Their nature as simple imaging devices, compared to professional science instruments, makes them easier to relate to devices on Earth (such as webcams) and in turn also makes it simpler for amateur contributors to work with the raw data.

The provision of access to this data on an open site, using modern Web 2.0 and social networking tools as support, has proved an innovative and successful way of involving the public, particularly space enthusiasts across the world. This open access to the Mars Webcam project is one of the foundations of the project and something which makes it a very special offering.

The community of interested amateurs, while relatively small, is an important one in the world of space outreach. The Mars Webcam project has proved that by involving this community we can not only enhance the outreach offering but also generate novel and exciting content, provided by these ‘exploration participants’. It also proves that space exploration still has an enormous capability to capture public interest and even the smallest webcam – our ordinary camera – can have an enormous impact when placed in the extraordinary location of space and made accessible to the general public.

It is hoped that the work that has started can continue with even greater involvement between the general public and the Mars Webcam to make this a true example of the benefit both sides can gain from ‘citizen science’.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The whole VMC operations team at ESOC thanks the TEC-ED department at ESTEC and OIP Sensor Systems for their development of such a capable piece of hardware and their support in helping us to understand how best to operate it.

We also thank all of the amateur contributors to the Mars Webcam project since its launch – their contributions have not only enhanced the website but also consistently impressed us with their quality and diversity.

Special thanks to our amateur contributors go to Gordan Ugarkovic for his vmc2rgb tool which is used for every VMC image to bring colour to the images, his work on this has been invaluable. Also to Emily Lakdawalla for her tutorial on VMC image processing which has helped not only amateur contributors but also our team in improving the quality of the pre-processed images.

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Thanks also go to all of those who have supported special VMC projects (VMC whole orbit movie, Adopt a VMC Observation) which have often required activities far beyond the normal work of the Mars Webcam. Thanks too to all those who produced wonderful pieces of work in response to these projects.

T. Ormston thanks the Mars Express Flight Control Team and the Mars Express mission management for their support in modifying the operations of the mission to include VMC as an active instrument.

Finally, the VMC team thanks the ESA communications team for their ongoing support of the VMC project and helping make our camera a public relations and outreach success.