NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) has announced that the space agency will launch its own 4K ultra high definition television channel on November 1.
The space agency reveals in a blog post that NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center located in Huntsville, Alabama is in the process of finalizing a deal with Harmonic that is a video delivery infrastructure firm that can provide Ultra High-Definition (UHD) content at 2,160 pixels at 60 frames every second.
NASA's UHD TV channel will be available via pay channel and online streaming website. According to NASA's deputy associate administrator of communications, Robert Jacobs, this partnership with Harmonic is a great opportunity for NASA to provide UHD content that possesses four times more resolution than HD in digital television.
NASA already has its own TV channel called NASA Television but its video footage is only delivered in high definition and not 4K. The new channel however will present an 8 megapixel resolution of UHD where viewers can experience ultra high definition views of space, never before seen on television screens.
The footage that will be shown on NASA's new UHD channel are sourced from high resolution images and videos that are captured from the International Space Station and even digitally remastered historical space missions.
To date, NASA is in the process of finalizing deals with cable, satellites and optical resolution networks to provide first of its kind access to the "first non commercial consumer ultra high definition channel in North America".
The biggest pay TV channels in the U.S. right now such as Comcast and Verizon currently do not provide the NASA Television channel which means viewers will have to wait a little longer for NASA's upcoming 4K channel. If not on cable, viewers can still access the UHD channel free online via their desktops, laptops and mobile devices given that they have access to high internet speeds of 13mbps or higher. In the U.S., the average internet speed connection is around 11.9 mbps according to Akamai Technologies.