The first time humans journeyed to the Moon, the world watched in black and white. Right around the globe, people gathered in front of bulky tube television sets wherever they could – universal TV ownership was still some way into the future – collectively holding their breath as they peered at the grainy images coming from almost a quarter of a million miles away, and one small step left an indelible imprint on history.
Overall, six spaceflights of NASA’s (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) Apollo programme landed some 12 astronauts on the Moon between 1969 and 1975, before the project ended and the administration turned its focus towards other missions, including the STS (Space Transportation System – the space shuttle) and its role in the International Space Station project. It seemed, at least to those with an amateur interest, as though the Moon was no longer in favour. The occasional probe was sent to visit, but manned missions to our closest celestial neighbour looked to be a thing of the past.
Until Artemis. Because now, more than five decades after an astronaut last left a mark on the lunar surface, the countdown is on to NASA’s next manned mission to the Moon. Yesterday, Artemis II blasted off on a six day flight around our only satellite. The mission will pave the way for Artemis III and IV, when humans will once again take steps on the distant, lonely planetoid.
Public fascination is likely to be intense, and as the technology that drives space exploration has advanced over the last half century, so too has innovation in the media environment. This time, the potential global audience can only be described as massive. Preparations are underway at NASA’s official streaming platform, NASA+, to meet viewer demands that have changed beyond recognition from the days when Armstrong and Collins took mankind’s first tentative extraterrestrial steps.
“We will obviously be live streaming,” says Rebecca Sirmons, general manager of NASA+, as she outlines the task ahead. “Artemis II launch will be flying around the Moon and we’re looking at viewership totalling around 25 million. Those are Olympics numbers, right?” For these missions, cameras are fixed “all over the space craft”, while the crews will use Nikon D5 digital cameras to capture detailed views of the lunar surface.
Given the scale of the task at hand, it is understandable that there are some nerves ahead of the operation. “We’re crossing our fingers,” she says, although it’s clear that the organisation has been carefully planning against all eventualities. NASA is actually mandated to share its story with as wide an audience as possible under the terms of the US Space Act of 1958, which also led to its creation. Broadcast innovation has long been part of its story. “[NASA+] is one of the most creative places I’ve ever worked,” continues Sirmons, who spent two decades working in the entertainment industry prior to joining the space race.
Primary live events are handled at the Kennedy Space Center and Johnson Space Center, with all technical infrastructure interconnected to ensure nimble, flexible operations via a virtual master control room. Live streaming operations are based at the Marshall Space Flight Center in Alabama. “It’s the home of our head of live streaming tech and streaming tech in general for NASA, plus Lee Erickson is there,” Sirmons refers to the Emmy Award-winning NASA engineer who led the administration’s transition to IP-based video delivery. Redundancy is set up both in Alabama and at the Goddard Space Flight Centre in Maryland. “We can basically run the machine from wherever we are,” says Sirmons. “The model is economically sustainable and a really smart way of operating, no matter where we are.”
It’s also where the hub was developed for Amazon Web Services (AWS). “We’re using Akamai as our CDN (Content Delivery Network),” she continues, “And we’re looking at working with multiple CDN partners moving forwards, to leverage these major broadcasts. We lean into diversified distribution, partnerships with Netflix and Amazon Prime. We also have original content partners like PBS and Canopy. [These will enable us to] get global distribution on a bigger level, so it’s more of us getting our feeds out there and having the partnerships in place to ensure success. My goal is to make sure that no matter where you are or how you consume content, you can find NASA.”
Our Apollo moment
Artemis II features three so-called ‘tent pole moments’ which are expected to drive the majority of views. The team is leveraging YouTube for distribution, strategically placing NASA to avoid overwhelming its own CDN when interest spikes. Sirmons explains how the team anticipates viewing figures will unfold over the duration of the mission. “The launch will have a large viewership. Six days later, we will have the lunar fly by and then, 10 days after launch, we have splashdown. I think, cumulatively, we’ll have 25 million.”
Signals should arrive back from the Moon in around three seconds, with latency extending to between five and 10 seconds overall “when we get through the broadcast infrastructure” as every hop slows things down. “I know that with space flight, we don’t have the fastest latency but the good news is we’ll be able to get it out pretty quickly.”
The broadcast crew on the ground is spread across the different centres and surprisingly small, with members often carrying out multiple roles. “There’s a lot of surge support,” says Sirmons, referring again to the expected spikes in viewing. “The team’s small. It’s not in the hundreds like what you’d see for Olympic broadcasts. I’d say the NASA+ team is under 10.”
A recent exciting development has seen astronauts equipped with smartphones to capture their own mission footage. Although it hasn’t yet been confirmed how much of this content will be shown—they are the crew’s personal devices—Sirmons expects some will make their films available. “It’s going to be interesting to see what they come back with,” she adds.
Growing up in Florida, Sirmons says she was “obsessed” with space from an early age, and saw a number of rocket launches, sadly including the ill-fated Challenger shuttle mission. As a child, she harboured ambitions to be a fighter pilot before entering a career in the media and entertainment business.
During the pandemic, her daughter wanted to watch astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley make their historic first crewed flight of the Dragon spacecraft en route to the International Space Station. Live coverage, however, proved impossible to find. “A seed was planted. I didn’t want another kid to experience that again.” As an executive specialising in streaming with an engineering background from the University of Central Florida, Sirmons was determined to solve the problem and, after seeing a random post on LinkedIn, soon found herself at NASA’s door.
“This is our Apollo moment,” she says. “Artemis is this generation’s answer to Apollo. I look at my daughter, and I think, oh my God, you’re probably going to be going to Mars one day. This is the beginning,” she concludes. “And it’s not just the Moon. We’re going to the Moon and then beyond.”
- This article appears in the latest issue of TVBEurope, available to download free here
