Mars livestream by ESA spacecraft disrupted by rain on Earth

Transmission is sometimes interrupted due to weather in Spain, where there is a deep space relay antenna.

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. – A European spacecraft around Mars sent its first live stream from the red planet to Earth on Friday to mark the 20th anniversary of launch, but sometimes rain in Spain got in the way.

The European Space Agency broadcast it live with views provided by Mars Express, which was launched by a Russian rocket from Kazakhstan in 2003.

It takes nearly 17 minutes for each image to reach Earth, nearly 200 million miles away, and another minute to pass through ground stations.

Transmission was sometimes interrupted due to rainy weather at the deep space relay antenna in Spain.

Still, there were enough images to please the European space officials holding the hour-long live stream. The early images show about a third of Mars, gradually getting bigger in the frames before shrinking as the spacecraft orbits the planet. White clouds are clearly visible in some photos.

"If you were aboard the Mars Express… this is what you would see," said Simon Wood, the mission's spacecraft operations engineer. "We don't usually get the picture this way."

According to Wood, images and other data are typically stored on spacecraft and then transmitted back to Earth, when the spacecraft's antenna can be pointed this way.

According to the ESA, near-real-time footage from very far away is "quite rare". The agency pointed to live broadcasts of Apollo moon walkers more than half a century ago and, more recently, live excerpts from the spacecraft deliberately crashing into the moon and an asteroid.

"These missions are all fairly close to home, and others that are further away can send an image or two in near-real time. When it comes to a live stream extending from deep space, this is a first," ESA said in a statement ahead of the event.

Rain on the plains in Spain cuts down on the number of images shown. ESA only spent an hour streaming because it didn't want to overload the spacecraft's batteries.

The Mars Express traveled to the red planet with a lander, named Beagle-2, which lost contact with Earth while attempting to land on the Martian surface.

More than a decade later, NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter captured images of the Beagle-2. Although it has surfaced, the lander's solar panels have not yet fully opened.