The Event
- On April 26, during a Super Session at the 2017 NAB Show, the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) will produce the first-ever live 4K video stream from space using the highest resolution video ever broadcast live from the International Space Station (ISS).
- Join astronauts in their home above the clouds as NASA astronaut Dr Peggy Whitson on the ISS converses with AWS Elemental CEO and co-founder Sam Blackman at the LVCC – and then listen in on a panel discussion between filmmakers, technology leaders and NASA scientists.
- The live feed from 250 miles above Earth will be encoded using AWS Elemental video processing software on board the International Space Station (ISS) and on the ground at Johnson Space Center for delivery by Amazon Web Services (AWS) in the cloud to multiscreen devices.
Where to Find It
- “Reaching for the Stars: Connecting to the Future of NASA and Hollywood”
- 10:30 to 11:30 a.m. on Wednesday, April 26, 2017, in room N249 (North Hall) of the Las Vegas Convention Center
- Learn how advanced imaging and cloud technologies are taking scientific research and filmmaking to the next level
- Moderator: Carolyn Giardina, technology editor, The Hollywood Reporter
- Panelists:
o NASA astronaut Dr Tracy Caldwell Dyson, PhD.
o NASA imagery experts program manager Rodney Grubbs
o Bernadette McDaid, head of development, VR & AR, Bau Entertainment
o Khawaja Shams, vice president of engineering, AWS Elemental
o Dr Dave McQueeney, senior principal investigator, IBM Watson Group
How to Watch It
- Produced by NASA, NAB, and Amazon Web Services (AWS), the panel event and live stream from space will be available to the public for multiscreen viewing in live 4K and down-converted high-definition (HD) video at https://live.awsevents.com/nasa4k. 4K-capable devices will be required to view 4K content
- After the event, lower resolution streams of the broadcast will also be available as a video-on-demand (VOD) asset on NASA’s Facebook page, NASA Television and the agency’s website as well as on https://live.awsevents.com/nasa4k
Another First for the International Space Station (ISS)!
- On April 24, Astronaut Whitson will break the American record for cumulative time in space when she reaches 535 days on the ISS
- The ISS orbits the Earth at an altitude of about 250 miles (approximately 402 kilometres) and travels at a speed of 17,200 miles per hour (27,600 km per hour)
- The orbiting microgravity laboratory serves as a world-class test bed for the technologies and communications systems needed for human missions to deep space. Astronauts are learning about what it takes to live and work in space for long periods of time, increasing our understanding of how the body changes in space and how to protect astronaut health.
- NASA is also working with commercial crew and cargo partners to provide access to low-Earth orbit and eventually stimulate new economic activity, allowing NASA to continue using the station while preparing for missions beyond.
[easy-tweet tweet=”Live 4K video will help take research to the next level and allow NASA to share discoveries” hashtags=”NASA,4KVideo”]
What You Will Learn
Audiences at NAB and online will learn how:
- Hollywood and NASA inspire one another and the fascinating, surprising outcomes of this decades-long collaboration;
- 4K and Ultra HD (UHD) give NASA scientists a clearer, crisper view of their experiments, Earth, and the solar system;
- Live 4K video will help take research to the next level and allow NASA scientists to share discoveries as they are happening – instead of after the fact;
- The powerful, first-ever live 4K streaming, cloud-enabled workflow from space works and how it can help commercial space endeavours and content creation; and,
- How live 4K will play a role in the journey to Mars …
How Live 4K from Space Works
ISS to Johnson Space Center
- Anchored by a 4K camera and AWS Elemental Live encoder aboard the ISS
- Video set up, controlled and managed over an IP network via the AWS Elemental user interface
- AWS Elemental Live encodes content in HEVC and sends it in a UDP transport stream via the ISS network to Johnson Space Center (JSC).
Johnson Space Center to Las Vegas Convention Center
- At JSC, the 4K video and audio inputs are decoded and routed to an AWS Elemental Live encoder;
- The AWS Elemental Live system delivers the signal to a network switch as an HEVC A/V output for delivery via satellite to a Roberts Communications Network satellite downlink truck on site at the LVCC, where the signal is brought into Room N249 for live viewing;
- 4K projectors from Christie display the live video in full 4K resolution during the session.
Public Live Streaming at www.live.awsevents.com
- The AWS Elemental Live systems provide redundant transcoded multi-bitrate outputs to two AWS Elemental Delta video delivery systems
- AWS Elemental Delta systems deliver HTTP Live Streaming (HLS) packages for IP delivery to the Amazon Web Services cloud
- Amazon Route 53 routes the signals to the Amazon CloudFront content delivery network for delivery to multiscreen and connected devices everywhere at www.live.awsevents.com
- Network monitoring is performed by Amazon CloudWatch