We're renovating!

As the Mars Express team works to recommission the VMC camera, we're taking advantage of the pause to transfer the VMC blog to the new Wordpress platform. Effective immediately, all news, updates and information -- not to mention new VMC images -- will be published via http://blogs.esa.int/vmc.

For now, the VMC image archives will remain searchable and available via this site; if we transfer them anywhere, we'll let you know.

Some nice news today for VMC fans: the teams at ESOC are getting closer to restoring the VMC back to operation. Imaging stopped, of course, with last autumn's anomaly, the solution of which has kept everyone in the MEX family fully occupied for several months. VMC, being last priority, was not worked on. But we're hopeful that we'll get a solution soon, and we'll post news here as soon as we hear anything.

References to our very own VMC camera activities highlighted - and note very nice comments on teamwork! Click link to read the full report.

While full science operations have now been resumed, a number of tasks remain to be completed. Most important among these is the implementation of an OBCP scheduler. This will enable the spacecraft to operate autonomously for up to a week, compared to the few days that are possible with the current FAST system. Work is also in hand to resume operation of the Visual Monitoring Camera (VMC – the 'Mars webcam').

Enormous team effort

Completely redesigning the way in which Mars Express is controlled has involved an enormous amount of work for the mission control team at the European Space Operations Centre (ESOC), assisted by their counterparts at the European Space Astronomy Centre (ESAC), PI-teams, other ESA experts and partners in industry. Everyone involved with the mission is extremely grateful for their hard work.

Although the 'Express' in Mars Express highlights that the mission was developed in a short time and with a relatively modest budget, the ability to resume full operations after a very serious failure shows that the resulting design is both robust and flexible.

Mars Express has now been restored to full operational capability and its potential mission lifetime remains unchanged

Our colleague Thomas Ormston, who leads VMC activities for the Mars Express team here at ESOC, recently presented a paper at the 61st International Astronautical Congress (IAC) in Prague, Czech Republic.

The paper, "An Ordinary Camera In An Extraordinary Location: Outreach With The Mars Webcam," covered the history of the VMC project and provided details on camera operations and our results to date in publishing results to this blog. It also described the outreach successes of the project, highlighted some of the contributions from the Mars Webcam community, explained opportunities to use and work with the Mars Webcam and plans for future camera activities.

The paper was the product of a joint effort and made use of input from the entire Mars Express team (thanks guys!) - it's an excellent review of VMC activities to date. You can access a copy in SlideShare.net or click on 'Full story' below.

We'd like to thank everyone who attended Thomas' presentation at IAC and, in particular, we'd like to give a big shout out to Beth Beck, who posted the following note in her blog:

"My fav presentation was European Space Agency's Mars WebCam project. You'll just have to check it out. The best example of 'participatory exploration' that I've seen. They turned an unused mission camera back on to take photos of Mars. They offer the data to the public to process. The Mars WebCam folks post the "processed" images back on their site. Quite wonderful. They've created an amazing, enthusiastic community of Mars-watchers, who participate in the mission voluntarily with hundreds of hours of processing time to their credit."

Thanks, Beth, for your kind words! -- Daniel

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ESA's J. Landeau-Constantin, Head of the EAC/ESOC Corporate Communication Office, explains the VMC (Mars Webcam) outreach project (that's us!) at today's "Public Outreach in Astronomy" workshop, part of the annual meeting of the German astronomy societies in Bonn.

In the image, M. Pössel chairs, while G. Schönherr works on her talk about the IYA in Germany. Twitpic credit: Daniel Fischer (cosmos4u) -- Daniel

The Visual Monitoring Camera (VMC) is mounted on Mars Express, ESA's deep-space probe now orbiting the Red Planet. It originally provided simple, low-tech photos of the Beagle lander separation, and is now back in action as the 'Mars Webcam'. It's not a scientific instrument, but it does provide fantastic images of Mars - including crescent views of the planet not obtainable from Earth. Full story »

FAQ developed by the VMC team at ESOC. Please read below before contacting us, as we will regularly update responses to the most common questions here. Scroll down for general specifications and contact information; the links on the right give more technical information about the VMC and its use and history on Mars Express.

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Welcome to the Mars Express Visual Monitoring Camera Blog!

This blog is operated by ESA - the European Space Agency - as an unofficial and in-depth source of information for the general public (important information and disclaimer).

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We asked the team working on the Mars Webcam Blog to introduce themselves. 

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