Grid-Based Distribution of Payload Video to Experimenters

Plans to distribute International Space Station (ISS) downlink video to Remote Principle Investigators (RPI) requires Internet 2/Abilene connections, multicast network capability, and 4 Mbps+ bandwidth capacity. Our goal is to make ISS downlink video much more accessible to RPI?s, NASA centers, and education/public outreach sites by converting the downlink video to lower resolutions, unicast, and widely used commercial-off-the shelf (COTS) formats. The approach will utilize low-cost personal computers and existing NASA, public, and research networks. The innovation is a low-cost, manageable, automated scheme for routing video in a standards-based computational grid environment. Phase I will evaluate widely-used systems and codecs that are both proprietary and open standards-based for video distribution. The feasibility of coordinated Internet-based scheduling mechanisms to simplify operations in a grid environment will be evaluated. A demonstration will distribute experiment video in a networked environment. In Phase II the most promising capabilities will be incorporated into a prototype video distribution system and tested with larger groups in a grid environment, including researchers performing live ISS telescience and NASA educational audiences. Also, the feasibility of incorporating the video distribution system into a Space Operations Grid supporting a variety of payload carriers will be investigated.