NASA Promises 4K Ultra High Definition TV Channel

If we weren’t sufficiently satisfied with streaming NASA videos on Youtube, starting November 1st, the U.S. space agency is set to launch a 4K Ultra High Definition TV channel.

According to the blog post making the big announcement, NASA wrote that the partnership was struck between the Marshall Space Flight Center located in Huntsville, Alabama and Harmonic – video delivery infrastructure company. The partnership enables NASA to launch its first Ultra High Definition (UHD) TV channel.

Delivering UHD content will come at a cost for consumers, yet:

“Partnering with Harmonic gives NASA an outlet for its UHD content, which has four times the resolution of HD and is the next iteration of digital television”,

stated Robert Jacobs, deputy associate administrator with NASA’s Office of Communications.

The newly announced UHD channel is an upgrade from NASA Television where content is currently delivered just in HD. An 8MP resolution of the UHD content is bound to offer NASA’s audience a different experience of space footage.

For now, NASA plans to offer content captured aboard and from the International Space Station. Also, remastered high-resolution footage of historical missions will feature on the new UHD channel.

NASA’s ambitions to bring space footage to our living rooms don’t stop here. Currently, the U.S. space agency is in negotiations with several optical networks, cable and satellite networks to provide non-commercial content on the first channel of its kind.

Verizon and Comcast customers will have to wait a while for the UHD 4K NASA TV channel to be included by the pay TV providers. Currently, these two don’t even offer NASA Television.

Still, the television channel is easily and free to access online from any mobile device or PC. The only requirement is that the Internet connection speed is above 12Mbps. How successful is NASA 4K UHD channel going to be is yet unknown.

In a market that only recently started to push 4K supporting devices, 4K content to fit the promised experience is darthing.

Photo Credits: Youtube