Tomorrow night, there's a live broadcast from Mars for the first time.

Thanks to CTOnews.com netizens for the delivery of clues on the way! CTOnews.com, June 1 (Xinhua) to celebrate the 20th birthday of the Mars Express rover (the 20th anniversary of its launch), ESA will organize its first live broadcast from Mars on Youtube video platform on June 2, starting at 23:45 on June 2 Beijing time.

Mars Express is a Mars probe launched by the European Space Agency in 2003, carrying a small camera called VMC (Visual Surveillance camera). The VMC was originally used to monitor the working status of other instruments on the Mars Express, but it was later transformed into a camera capable of taking high-resolution images of Mars.

In the past 20 years, the Mars Express has made great contributions to the understanding of Mars: the discovery of a huge reservoir under Mars, the loss and rediscovery of its lander partner, Beagle 2, and the sharing of many wonderful Mars images (such as a panoramic view of the South Pole of Mars). CTOnews.com notes that the operating system it uses is still a modified Windows 98.

At that time, in the one-hour live broadcast, you can see the "real-time" images of Mars taken by the Mars Express in the annular orbit. The imaging frequency of the Mars Express in the live broadcast is to take an image every 50 seconds. The image delay is 18 minutes (17 minutes of light delay between ground and fire + 1 minute of ground transmission imaging).

Mars surface image taken by Mars Express on May 30, 2023