NASA’s Stennis Space Center (SSC) will always be recognized as the center that tested and proved flight-worthy the rocket engines and boosters that were safely used on lunar space missions. The space center recently began updating much of its rocket engine test equipment, including its video systems. This includes the Apella video recording system that NASA acquired from Video Technics.
During the regular tests, cameras feed video to the 24 video server inputs. The Apella SDS eight-channel (4 IN / 4 OUT each) networked server provide a total of 24 record and 24 playback channels. Rocket engine tests can be expensive and sometimes impossible to repeat. Therefore, it is necessary to run the solution in parallel by recording the same camera feeds to multiple channels.
Appela VT Record software is used to apply custom metadata to each record session and gang multiple channels together using house timecode. Stennis tests are recorded for the entire duration. Then, the servers are stopped and video is reviewed to allow the test team to determine if anything untoward occurred during the test.
