We have seen Howard Wolowitz communicating with Bernadette Rostenkowski over screen. SO, I just wanted to confirm that is it really possible to communicate using video chat facilities like skype or omagle from space. Is there any truth or was it just for the series?
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1While the astronauts do have access to the the internet there is a significant delay in getting and receiving messages. I do think it is possible for them to use something like skype but it wouldn't be in real time. The astronauts on the ISS tweet on twitter so you could ask them yourself twitter.com/@NASA_Astronauts– Ravneet GrewalCommented Oct 29, 2015 at 14:56
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I think their link is something like 300Mbit to earth ("upload") and some fraction of that for download ("from earth"), but the best possibly ping is on the order of 1-2 seconds, and I have seen some info for experiments saying to expect 5 second latency one way. They can stream netflix, but two-way conversation with a 5-10 second delay is hellish.– YorikCommented Oct 29, 2015 at 17:07
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2 Answers
Chris Hadfield gave a lot of interviews live from ISS, so it is possible, but he did not use Skype, but some NASA direct stream. But I guess he could also use Skype or something else, so it is technically possible.
Here is a example, there are a lot more of such videos. You see there is only a small delay:
In this official NASA article it is mentioned that they have a private access to the internet, there is also mentioned they have Internet Protocol telephone and limited videoconferencing capabilities.
This Quora answer by an Instructor and Flight Controller at NASA mentions that they don't use Skype, but Microsoft NetMeeting.
They can. They use VSee technology to talk to Earth.
In this video, at 6:30, a Russian astronaut Mikhail Kornienko uses VSee to talk to his wife