NASA transmits first hip-hop song to Venus via deep space network

NEW DELHI — NASA on Tuesday informed of transmitting first hip hop legend Missy Elliot’s song The Rain (Supa Dupa Fly) to Venus via its deep space network. 

The song was transmitted at 10:05 a.m. PDT on Friday, July 12 from the space agency’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California.

While this is the first hip hop song to travel to outer space, the Beatles song titled Across The Universe, was the first song sent into deep space by NASA in 2018.

“Both space exploration and Missy Elliott’s art have been about pushing boundaries,” said Brittany Brown, director of the Digital and Technology Division.

NASA said the song travelled around 254 million km from Earth to Venus, the artist’s favourite planet. The radio frequency signal was transmitted at the speed of light and took roughly 14 minutes to reach the planet.

The transmission was produced via the 34-metre wide Deep Space Station 13 (DSS-13, also known as Venus, in honour of the Venus Radar Experiment of March 1961) radio dish antenna at the DSN’s Goldstone Deep Space Communications Complex near Barstow, California.

“I still can’t believe I’m going out of this world with NASA through the Deep Space Network when ‘The Rain’ (Supa Dupa Fly) becomes the first-ever hip-hop song to transmit to space. I chose Venus because it symbolises strength, beauty, and empowerment and I am so humbled to have the opportunity to share my art and my message with the universe,” said Elliott.

Meanwhile, two NASA missions will explore Venus and send data back to Earth using the DSN.

DAVINCI (Deep Atmosphere Venus Investigation of Noble gases, Chemistry, and Imaging) is slated to launch by 2029.

The VERITAS (Venus Emissivity, Radio Science, InSAR, Topography, and Spectroscopy) is expected to launch by 2031.

NASA and the DSN are also partnering with the European Space Agency’s Venus mission, Envision.