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Amateur Records the "Sound" of Mars Express

Posted by kdawson on from the music-of-the-artificial-irregular-shapes dept.

gyrogeerloose writes "A French amateur radio operator who built his own ground station using equipment from an abandoned telecom uplink site has listened in on the ESA's Mars Express space probe. While his antenna is too small to allow him to download actual data, he was able to record and convert the signal of the probe's X-Band transmitter into an audio file."

15 of 52 comments (clear)

  1. Re:I need a subject? OK by Dachannien · · Score: 4, Funny

    I wonder what data would actually have been transmitted in that bit of sound?

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Portal-2-ARG-SSTV-Images.png

  2. Re:I need a subject? OK by Ethanol-fueled · · Score: 2, Funny

    It sounds like Wile E. Coyote falling off of a cliff.

  3. It sounds like Wile E. Coyote falling off of a cli by Oxford_Comma_Lover · · Score: 4, Funny

    > It sounds like Wile E. Coyote falling off of a cliff.

    Well, a good space program teaches that some things are constant everywhere in the Universe.

    Beep, beep.

    --
    -- IANAL, this isn't legal advice, and definitely isn't legal advice for you. Also, Squee!
  4. Re:DeCSS by Ethanol-fueled · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Learn to doppler. Refer to the picture in TFA. See that green shit at the top? The "mesa" is the noise and the peak is the tone we hear. As the spaceship flies outta sight, the peak will shift left while decreasing in height. The purple-colored graph is a record of the signal strength over time.

  5. Re:I need a subject? OK by AnotherUsername · · Score: 4, Funny

    Mork, calling Orson. Come in, Orson. Mork, calling Orson. Come in Orson...

    --
    I don't like Linux. This doesn't make me a troll.
  6. Re:I need a subject? OK by __aasqbs9791 · · Score: 4, Funny

    Thanks a lot. Now I feel old...

  7. Hire him by acid06 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    If this guy has so much motivation trying to do this as a hobby, ESA should step forward and hire him straight away.
    Imagine what he could do if he had access to proper equipment.

    1. Re:Hire him by tftp · · Score: 2, Interesting

      If this guy has so much motivation trying to do this as a hobby, ESA should step forward and hire him straight away.

      There are many hams who build their own microwave radios for 10 or 24 GHz (and for other bands too) from parts. This guy, motivated and all, was mostly using off the shelf equipment. For example, look at these photos of ham rigs - and note that those are mobile setups because the rules of the contest encourage roving.

  8. Re:I need a subject? OK by hldn · · Score: 2, Informative

    better pick a later year, as i recall watching mork & mindy on nick at nite well into the 90s.

    --
    http://www.accountkiller.com/removal-requested
  9. What was in that carrier? by Announcer · · Score: 2, Informative

    The article does explain it. I read about it the other day, that they commanded the craft to stop sending data, and only send a steady carrier. They will measure the very tiny variations in the doppler shift that the Phobos flyby caused, to determine the composition and distribution of its mass. (Is the core hollow, that kind of thing.)

    --
    Willie...
  10. Re:not much to say by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    low rate data is BPSK modulated on a subcarrier which is then phase modulated on the main carrier with a mod index (or deviation) that is chosen to balance the power in the "data" and the power in the "carrier". Since the carrier power is used for navigation (e.g. the Phobos flyby) you don't suppress it all.

    All is revealed in documents at http://www.ccsds.org/ or http://deepspace.jpl.nasa.gov/dsndocs/810-005/

    Knock yourselves out... you'll be able to demodulate the bits, do the decoding, find the frames.. after that it's a bit tricky to find the science data and decommutate it..

  11. Wait by JumpDrive · · Score: 2, Funny

    Is he sure that was MARS Express and not his next door neighbors high speed power drill?

    Are we sure he did an off axis test? ( I saw that in a movie once)

  12. I can make that noise with my short wave radio! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    This 'sound' claim gets today's WTF Award for its massive HUH? factor. Seriously? This typical shortwave radio noise is worth publishing?

  13. Ham radio types are a bit like audiophiles by grimsnaggle · · Score: 2, Insightful

    They'll often spend enormous sums of money and huge amounts of time trying to do something. Many try to communicate around the world on five watts (DXers) or try to bounce their signal off the moon (EME).

    The difference, however, is that usually the amateur radio types also happen to have instruments that can provide some measure of success. The also tend to do things that are far cooler than having a vacuum tube amplifier.

    But maybe I'm biased... I'm an amateur radio operator, after all.

    That said, I think hams usually try and decode the signal they receive. Just hearing it come in from the air is a little bit less exciting.

  14. Re:Falling may not be a bad description by sandertje · · Score: 2, Insightful

    It's probably just an effect of it's highly eccentric orbit around Mars. On one end (apoapsis) of the orbit, it's 10,000 km from the surface of Mars, on the other end (periapsis) it's just a mere 298 km from Mars. Moving from apoapsis to periapsis might appear like "falling" towards Mars, and since there's a difference in distance: doppler effect. No need to worry immediately ;-)