A minor but good benefit of privately owned spacecraft? Eye candy.
From Spaceflight Now via Space Pragmatisim
Desktop eye candy from orbit. From a craft that is going to be up there for years. How nifty-keen.
From Spaceflight Now via Space Pragmatisim
Bigelow said the cameras positioned outside the module have been affected by poor resolution due to glare and other phenomena. The team is still looking to see the Genesis 1 name on the outer hull of the craft, and a few colors have been off, according to Bigelow.
Much of the communication so far between Las Vegas-based ground control and Genesis 1 has been through UHF and VHF radio systems, which are primarily used to relay telemetry data.
The S-band communications system allows the spacecraft to beam back data and images more rapidly than UHF or VHF. Once a good connection is made, images should flood into Bigelow's mission control room. When this occurs, a page on the company's web site will begin to refresh daily with new photos from the orbiting module.
Desktop eye candy from orbit. From a craft that is going to be up there for years. How nifty-keen.
