Congratulations to NASA, the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, and United Launch Alliance for their successful launch of the Parker Solar Probe to study the closest star to Earth, the Sun, at distances never accomplished before. With this successful launch, it is time to add details of the Parker Solar Probe mission to this list of American interplanetary spacecraft photo gear. Fingers crossed for a not-too-hot journey to study the massive fireball at the center of our Solar System!

The first photograph of Earth from space was taken by the TIROS-1 weather satellite on April 1, 1960. Ever since, satellites, probes, and spacecraft have been taking amazing photos of the solar system and beyond! Space probes are packed with sensors, but in our list below, we wanted to talk about those imaging systems that are relatively close cousins to what you can find on the shelves of the B&H SuperStore.

Cassini

Launched in 1997, Cassini orbited the crown jewel of the solar system, Saturn and its and moons until fall of 2017 when it was intentionally flown into Saturn's atmosphere to prevent an unavoidable possible future collision with the Saturnian moon, Enceladus, which may harbor extraterrestrial life. The Cassini probe was equipped with various optical sensors and one optical camera that has captured amazing images of the ringed planet. The spacecraft's Huygens Probe landed on the moon, Titan. Cassini's Imaging Science Subsystem (ISS) consists of a wide- and narrow-angle camera. Both cameras feature a CCD sensor of 12 micron pixels numbering 1024 x 1024, with a resolving power that can see a quarter-dollar at a range of 2.5 miles.

Cassini sails over the rings of Saturn (artist's rendition).

Each camera has two filter wheels—9 filters for the wide-angle and 18 for the narrow-angle camera—to limit specific wavelengths of light, and the cameras sent back an average of 2,700 photos to Earth each month, including frames to verify Cassini's position in space, using celestial navigation, as there is definitely no GPS on Saturn!

Saturn and its stately rings

Launched in 2007, Dawn orbited the protoplanet Vesta (2011) and dwarf planet Ceres (2015) before its ion propulsion system ran out of fuel, in November 2018. Vesta and Ceres are the largest objects in the asteroid belt between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. Due to performance from its efficient engine system, Dawn spacecraft became the first spacecraft to orbit two bodies beyond the Earth-moon system.

Dawn (artist's rendition)

Dawn carries two identical cameras: a primary and backup known as the Framing Camera. Each has a 150mm f/7.9 lens with 7 color filters and 8 gigabits of internal data storage.

Bright spots in Ceres's second mapping orbit

Deep Impact

Deep Impact launched in 2005 toward the comet Tempel 1 and, less than 7 months after launch, the probe released an impactor that struck the comet's surface. Deep Impact carried two cameras, a High Resolution Instrument (HRI), an 11.8" telescope, and a Medium Resolution Instrument (HRI), a 4.7" telescope. The MRI served as a functional backup to the HRI as well as a celestial navigation tool. The impactor carried a targeting camera.

Deep Impact (artist's rendition)

The HRI was one of the largest cameras flown into space on a planetary mission and had a resolution of 6' per pixel at 435 miles. The MRI's wide-angle system had a resolution of 33' per pixel at the same range. Unfortunately, the HRI's images were blurry for the comet encounter, but there were plans to repurpose the camera and probe to look for planets orbiting distant stars.

This spectacular image of comet Tempel 1 was taken 67 seconds after it obliterated Deep Impact's impactor spacecraft. The image was taken by the high-resolution camera on the mission's flyby craft. Scattered light from the collision saturated the camera's detector, creating the bright splash seen here. Linear spokes of light radiate away from the impact site, while reflected sunlight illuminates most of the comet surface. The image reveals topographic features, including ridges, scalloped edges and possibly impact craters formed long ago.

Deep Space 1

Pioneering ion propulsion technology, Deep Space 1 was launched in 1998 and flew by the asteroid 9969 Braille and the comet Borelly. The craft's Miniature Integrated Camera and Imaging Spectrometer (MICAS) was a 26.5-lb package containing two black-and-white cameras and other imaging equipment.

Deep Space 1 (artist's rendition)

All of the sensors shared the same 4" diameter telescope and electronic shutters. One B&W camera was a CCD and the other was an active pixel sensor, similar to a CMOS sensor. The structure and mirrors were made out of silicon carbide. Camera resolution was approximately 100 to 150 feet at its closest approach of 3 miles.

This image of a xenon ion engine, photographed through a port of the vacuum chamber where it was being tested at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, shows the faint blue glow of charged atoms being emitted from the engine.

Deep Space Program Science Experiment / Clementine

This spacecraft was launched on a Titan II from California, in January 1994, with the goal of testing sensors and spacecraft components for long-duration spaceflight as part of joint project between NASA and the Reagan-era Defense Department Strategic Defense Initiative (popularly known as “Star Wars”). Clementine was the first US spacecraft to visit the moon since Apollo 17, 20 years prior.

A mockup of Clementine at the National Air & Space Museum

Clementine carried a UV/Visible Camera, Near Infrared Camera, Long Wavelength Infrared Camera, a High-Resolution Camera, and two Star Tracker Cameras. The UV/Visible camera was a catadioptric telescope with a six-filter filter wheel and 288 x 384-pixel CCD imager. The Near IR camera was also a 96mm f/3.33 catadioptric telescope with a six-filter wheel, and the Long Wavelength IR camera had a 96mm f/2.67 catadioptric lens. The HiRes camera consisted of a Beryllium telescope and CCD imager. The Star Trackers featured a concentric-optics design with a fiber optic field flattener and 576 x 384 pixel CCD array. These cameras were used for imaging and to verify the spacecraft’s position using celestial navigation. A Charged Particle Telescope and Laser Image Detection and Ranging (LIDAR) system rounded out the equipment suite.

Mosaics of both lunar poles

After leaving lunar orbit, in May 1994, a computer error caused a thruster to fire and placed the spacecraft in an 80 rpm spin. This canceled a follow-on mission to the asteroid Geographos. However, the probe has cemented its place in history by being the first spacecraft to map the entire lunar surface topographically and, 4 years after studying the data, it was revealed that Clementine had discovered water ice in the moon’s deep polar craters—enough to support a lunar colony or create rocket fuel for further space exploration.

Galileo

Leaving Earth in 1989 onboard the Space Shuttle Atlantis, Galileo headed for the Jovian System, visiting two asteroids on its way to the gas giant. While in orbit around Jupiter, it was eyewitness to the collision between the Schumacher-Levy comet and the huge planet. The spacecraft was a spinning platform, but the part with the camera remained stationary. The Solid State Imager (SSI) was an 800 x 800-pixel CCD camera. Galileo was the first CCD-equipped spacecraft. To protect the CCD from Jupiter's radiation, the camera was shielded with tantalum. An 8-filter wheel allowed filtering of different colors.

Galileo (artist's rendition)

In 2003, Galileo was intentionally crashed into Jupiter's atmosphere to prevent possibly contaminating the moon Europa with Earth-based material.

The surface of Jupiter's icy moon, Europa

Insight

Launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base, in May 2018, Insight touched down on the Red Planet on November 26, 2018. Notably, this is NASA's first West Coast interplanetary launch and, another first, Insight will be accompanied to Mars by two small CubeSats—Mars Cube One or MarCO—nicknamed "Eva" and "Wall-E." Its science objectives are more inner-looking at the planet, and less visual. The lander will study the formation of terrestrial planets by investigating the internal structure of Mars while determining the current levels of seismic activity on Mars to gauge tectonic movements and meteor impacts on the surface.

Mars Insight

But, even though the craft is studying the inside of Mars, we may as well snap some photos while there. Insight is equipped with two cameras—Instrument Deployment Camera (IDC) and Instrument Context Camera (ICC). The IDC is mounted at the end of a robotic arm—the first interplanetary arm to grasp devices on another planet—and the ICC is mounted below the deck and faces the working instruments.

Both cameras are full-color modified versions of the cameras on the Opportunity and Spirit rovers and are CCDs with 1024 x 1024 resolution. The IDC is aimed by the arm, has a 45-degree field of view, and the capability of making 360-degree panoramic images of the landing site. The ICC has a 120-degree field of view for wide-angle monitoring of the work site.

The two CubeSats are both equipped with dual cameras, as well. Both MarCo's have a color wide-field engineering camera with a 138-degree field of view. This camera is used to confirm the antenna deployment. And, each CubeSat has a color narrow-field 6.8-degree field of view camera pointed at the UHF antenna. Both cameras have a resolution of 752 x 480 pixels.

An image from Wall-E showing Earth and the moon as the CubeSat speeds towards Mars.

Juno

Launched in 2011 and in orbit around Jupiter, the Juno spacecraft features some first-of-its-kind photography social-media interaction. Started in the fall of 2015, JunoCam allowed fans of the mission to help decide the photos the craft will capture while it orbits Jupiter. In fact, the camera was installed on the spacecraft strictly for public engagement purposes. The other instruments will be doing the scientific part.

Juno (artist's rendition)

JunoCam features a Kodak KAI-2020 color imaging sensor with a resolution of 1600 x 1200 pixels. Its field of view is 18 x 3.4 degrees and it has three color filters. The elliptical orbit of the spacecraft will vary camera resolution from 1.8 miles per pixel to 1,118 miles per pixel. At the low resolution, the giant planet will be only about 75 pixels wide, but when it is up close, JunoCam will have better resolution than the Cassini probe did on its Jupiter flyby en route to Saturn. The Juno spacecraft will likely take fewer than 100 images on its 33-orbit flight around Jupiter.

Composite image taken of Earth

Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS)

Launched with an Atlas V, in June 2009, along with the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (see below), the LCROSS spacecraft was on a kind of suicide mission to witness the impact of the Atlas V’s Centaur upper stage into a deep crater near the lunar South Pole. After steering the Centaur to its destination, LCROSS separated and followed the Centaur into the crater on October 9, 4 minutes after the Centaur’s impact, flying through and photographing the debris plume while searching for water ice.

LCROSS follows the Atlas V’s Centaur upper stage towards impact with the moon (artist’s rendition).

LCROSS carried a Visible Camera, two Near IR cameras, two Mid-IR cameras, a Visible Spectrometer, two IR Spectrometers, and a Total Luminescence Photometer. The Visible Camera was equipped with a 12mm f/1.2 lens and a 752 x 582 24-bit RGB pixel CCD sensor. After sampling, the final image resolution was 720 x 486.

The LCROSS camera and an image of the Centaur’s impact plume

Lunar Orbiter Series

From 1966 through 1967, in the run-up to the manned Apollo moon missions, NASA sent five unmanned spacecraft to orbit the moon, named Lunar Orbiter I through V, with a mission to capture images of the surface. The goal of the first three missions was to survey possible landing sites that would be suitable for the Apollo lunar modules. Meeting the survey goals, the last two probes had more scientific purposes. In all, the entire side of the moon facing Earth was photographed as well as 95% of the far side (not the "Dark Side") of the moon.

Lunar Orbiter

The probes carried film cameras developed by Eastman Kodak like models built for the National Reconnaissance Office. They were armed with a Pacific Optical Company 610mm f/5.6 lens and a Schneider Kreuznach 80mm f/2.8 Xenotar lens and took 70mm film. The 35-lb cameras were like those that were carried on reconnaissance aircraft. The film was developed in the spacecraft using a single-solution Bimat process, and dried. Once developed, the film was scanned and transmitted to Earth.

Lunar Orbiter Camera

Lunar Orbiter I sent the very first photo of the Earth taken from lunar orbit on August 23, 1966. Currently, the Lunar Orbiter Image Recovery Project is preserving and digitizing these remarkable images.

The first image of Earth from the Moon.

Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO)

Launched in 2009 to the moon piggy-backed with LCROSS (see above), the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter has been photographing and mapping new craters on Earth's natural satellite, making 3D lunar maps, and even photographing the Apollo manned mission landing sites! The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera (LROC) is a system of three cameras. The two Narrow-Angle Cameras are designed to provide 20" panchromatic images over a 3.1-mile swath.

Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (artist's rendition)

The Wide-Angle Camera provides a resolution of 330' in 7 color bands over a 37-mile swath. The LROC is a version of the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter's ConTeXt Camera and Mars Color Imager (see below).

22 NAC oblique view of Tycho crater highlights the summit area of this spectacular image. The central peak complex is about 15 km wide, southeast to northwest (left to right in this view).

NAC oblique view of Tycho crater highlights the summit area of this spectacular image. The central peak complex is about 15 km wide, southeast to northwest (left to right in this view).

The 10 Mariner probes were built to explore Venus, Mars, and Mercury between 1962 and 1973. Several were lost on launch mishaps, but other Mariners went on to make history. When Mariner 9 orbited Mars, it became the first space probe to enter orbit around another planet.

Mariner Series

Some of the Mariner probes carried cameras, some did not. Mariner 6 and Mariner 7, launched in 1969, carried wide-angle and narrow-angle cameras and a digital tape recorder for the data. Mariner 9, launched in 1971, had the same photographic payload. Mariner 10, launched in 1973, carried two narrow-angle cameras with the digital tape recorder.

This view of channels on Mars came from NASA's Mariner 9 orbiter. In 1971, Mariner 9 became the first spacecraft from Earth to enter orbit around Mars.

Mars Climate Orbiter

The Mars Climate Orbiter launched to the Red Planet in 1998 and suffered a fiery death in the Martian Atmosphere when it experienced a navigational error due to a mix-up between Imperial and metric units becoming, perhaps, the world's best argument for going metric universally. The mission was part of the Mars Surveyor '98 program that included the Mars Polar Lander.

The Mars Color Imager

Onboard the spacecraft was the Mars Color Imager; a camera system combining wide and medium-angle cameras with 7.2 km/pixel, er, 4.5 miles/pixel resolution from Mars orbit with 1000 x 1000 pixel sensors. The wide-angle dual lens had a field of view of 140 degrees and was equipped with a 5-element fused silica f/6 lens for short UV and visible light. A 7-element f/5 lens worked with long UV and visible light. A prism and dichroic beam splitter gave the lens an effective focal length of 4.3mm. The medium-angle camera had a field of view of 6 degrees and a 6-element catadioptric lens at an f/2 aperture and 87.9mm focal length. This camera was scheduled to provide 40 meter/pixel, er, 131'/pixel resolution.

Mars Exploration Rovers, Opportunity and Spirit

Both rovers were launched to Mars in the summer of 2003 with planned 90-day missions. Both rovers, sized about 5 x 5', landed in January of 2004; Spirit lasted almost 7.5 years. Opportunity sent back data for an amazing 14 years after it embarked on a 3-month mission until a planet-wide dust storm in 2018 coated its solar panels and ended the rover's mission.

Mars Exploration Rover (artist's rendition)

Both rovers were equipped with a small arsenal of cameras, including a panoramic camera (Pancam), hazard avoidance cameras (Hazcams), and navigation cameras (Navcams). The stereo panoramic camera is mounted atop the rover's mast and has two lenses and CCD sensors placed 12" apart at 5' above the ground. The Pancam has 16 different filters at its disposal and its front lens elements are protected by a sapphire window. The 3-element lenses have a 38mm focal length and f/20 aperture. The CCD captures 12-bit images at 1024 x 1024 resolution and can generate mosaic images measuring 4000 x 24000 pixels.

On May 19, 2005, NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Spirit captured this stunning view as the Sun sank below the rim of Gusev crater, on Mars.

The Navcam is mounted on the same mast as the Pancam and the four Hazcams are mounted low on the front and rear of the vehicle in stereo pairs to provide 3D images of the terrain.

Mars Global Surveyor

In 1996, the Mars Global Surveyor left Earth for our closest neighbor away from the Sun. The spacecraft orbited Mars for more than nine years and its camera systems helped determine the surface routes for the aforementioned rovers, Opportunity and Spirit. Onboard the Mars Global Surveyor was the Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC) experiment.

Mars Global Surveyor (artist's rendition)

The MOC is the in-flight spare for the Mars Observer Camera (see below). The narrow-angle camera has a 13.8" aperture and 3.5m focal length at f/10. It is a Ritchey-Chrétien telescope with an 0.4-degree field of view for its 2048 x 2048 pixel CCD, with a resolution of 4.6'/pixel. The wide-angle camera system comprises two cameras mounted on the side of the narrow-angle assembly. One wide-angle camera has an 11.4mm focal length at f/6.3 and the other is 11mm at f/6.4. Field of view is 140 degrees and resolution is 919'/pixel at the nadir of the orbit and 1.2 miles/pixel at the limb.

Mars Observer

Mars Observer launched in 1992 to the Red Planet and mysteriously lost contact with Earth just prior to entering Martian orbit. Onboard was the Mars Observer Camera (MOC) system. Lost to the void of outer space, an identical camera system was launched on the Mars Global Surveyor four years later (see above).

Mars Observer (artist's rendition)

Mars Odyssey Launched to Mars in 2001, the Mars Odyssey spacecraft is still in service and has collected more information on Mars than any spacecraft before or since. In orbit around Mars, the Thermal Emission Imaging System (THEMIS) is a combination thermal infrared imaging spectrometer and high-resolution camera.

Mars Odyssey (artist's rendition)

THEMIS uses an all-reflective, 3-mirror f/1.7 anastigmatic telescope with a 4.7" aperture and a focal length of 200mm. The system is thermally stabilized by an electric cooler. The silicon array sensor measures 1024 x 1024 pixels and the visible camera has a resolution of 59'/pixel in the creation of 15,000 panchromatic visible images of the Martian surface. THEMIS can also align the IR and visible images as needed.

Image of Udzha Crater, on Mars

Mars Pathfinder/Sojourner

Heading for the Martian System in 1996, the Pathfinder Spacecraft carried with it a small rover, Sojourner, to the Red Planet. When Pathfinder landed, Sojourner became the first wheeled vehicle from Earth to explore another planet in our solar system. Designed to operate on the surface for a week, Sojourner explored the planet for 83 days.

Mars Pathfinder/Sojourner (artist's rendition)

Mounted on the rover’s 5’ mast, the Imager for Mars Pathfinder (IMP) camera system was a stereo camera used to provide images of the surface and aid in the navigation of the machine. Two 12-position color filter wheels featured 15 filters optimized for Mars geology, 8 filters for atmospheric and solar studies, and one magnifying filter. Each lens had a focal length of 23mm at f/18. Depth of field was from 1.6’ to infinity. The CCD sensor for each lens measured 256 x 256 pixels.

Sojourner also carried two small finger-sized black-and-white cameras, mounted low on the chassis, to show the driving terrain. The 4mm lenses were coupled to a 768 x 484 pixel CCD. Sojourner sent back 16,661 images, including a 360-degree panorama of its landing site.

Various images of the Sojourner rover shot by the Pathfinder cameras have been composited into the Presidential Panorama. Since the camera's position was consistent, it is possible to see these images of the rover in the context of the entire landscape. This provides a visual scale for understanding the sizes and distances of rocks surrounding the lander, as well as a record of the travels of the rover. Several of the rover images were captured in full color. The rest were colorized using color sampled from those frames.

Mars Polar Lander

Launched in 1999, the Mars Polar Lander and Deep Space 2 probes headed to the Red Planet, but contact was lost before the mission could begin. The spacecraft likely crashed into the Martian surface.

Mars Polar Lander (artist's rendition)

Onboard the doomed craft was the Mars Descent Imager (MARDI) that was designed to take 10 pictures of the landing event. The 9-element refractive optic camera had a focal length of 7.125mm with a field of view of 73.4 degrees. The camera featured a Kodak CCD sensor with 1024x1024 pixel resolution.

Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO)

Lofted toward Mars in 2005, the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter continues to study the Red Planet while serving as a relay station for other Mars missions, including the Opportunity rover (see above).

Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (artist's rendition)

Equipped with the most powerful telescopic camera ever built to send to a foreign planet, the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) is a 3-mirror astigmatic Cassegrain at f/24 with a 12m focal length. There are 14 detector-chip assemblies, staggered with a 48-pixel overlap, which can be combined to create images up to 20000 x 65000 pixels. The camera, in case you wanted to purchase one, cost $31 million to develop.

Frost on a crater slope

The orbiter also carried the Mars Color Imager (MARCI) for visible and UV photography and the Context Imager (CTX) with a wide-area, lower-resolution views, to provide context for the HiRISE camera system.

Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity Rover

The Mars Science Laboratory mission's Curiosity rover, the most technologically advanced rover ever built, landed in Mars' Gale Crater the evening of August 5, 2012, PDT. Curiosity's mission was to determine whether the Red Planet ever was, or is, habitable to microbial life. The rover, which is about the size of a MINI Cooper, is equipped with 17 cameras and a robotic arm containing specialized laboratory-like tools and instruments.

The Mast Camera

The Mast Camera on the rover was designed to take single-exposure, color snapshots similar to those taken with a consumer digital camera on Earth. In addition, it has multiple filters for taking sets of monochromatic images. These images are used to analyze patterns of light absorption in different portions of the electromagnetic spectrum. One of the two "Mastcam" camera systems has a moderate-resolution lens; the other camera system has a high-resolution lens for studying the landscape far from the rover. The Mastcam can take high-definition video at 10 frames per second. Its electronics processes images independently of the rover's central processing unit and has an internal data buffer for storing thousands of images or several hours of high-definition video footage for transmission to Earth.

Curiosity "selfie" panorama at the "Mojave" site on Mount Sharp, Mars

Another camera, the Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) provides earthbound scientists with close-up views of the minerals, textures, and structures in Martian rocks, surface debris, and dust. The self-focusing, 1.5" wide camera takes color images of features as small as 12.5 micrometers, smaller than the diameter of a human hair. MAHLI carries white light sources, similar to the light from a flashlight, and ultraviolet light sources, similar to the light from a tanning lamp, making the imager functional both day and night. The ultraviolet light is used to induce fluorescence to help detect carbonate and evaporite minerals, both of which indicate that water helped shape the landscape on Mars.

MESSENGER (Mercury Surface, Space Environment, Geochemistry, and Ranging)

Our first spacecraft to give us an in-depth study of Mercury, the closest planet to the Sun, Messenger launched in August 2004 on board a Delta II and entered Mercury’s orbit in 2011. Until then, Mercury’s only visitor had been Mariner 10, a full 36 years prior. Before entering orbit around the tiny planet, MESSENGER performed an Earth flyby, two flybys of Venus, and three flybys of Mercury on its seven-year fuel-saving journey.

MESSENGER at Mercury (artist’s rendition)

Operating near room temperature (68°F) behind a sunshade to protect it from temperatures of approximately 840°F, MESSENGER’s camera system was known as the Mercury Dual Imaging System (MDIS). The MDIS contained a Narrow-Angle Camera (NAC) and Wide-Angle Camera (WAC). The NAC featured a 550mm lens. The WAC camera had a focal length of 78mm and a 12-position filter wheel. Interestingly, the WAC’s twelfth filter was a broadband filter that allowed the WAC to be used for celestial navigation. Both cameras fed a single 1024 x 1024-pixel CCD sensor.

Mercury’s Rembrandt Basin

Following two mission extensions, MESSENGER burned its remaining propellant to de-orbit the planet and crashed into the surface, in April 2015.

New Horizons

Launched in 2006 to the far reaches of the Kuiper Belt; the New Horizons probe just became the first spacecraft to visit the dwarf planet, Pluto. Onboard is a pair of visible-light cameras: the Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) looks far ahead of the spacecraft, and Ralph is a visible and IR camera.

New Horizons (artist's rendition)

Ralph features a 75mm lens at f/8.7 and, to avoid thermal issues, the camera's mirrors were polished from aluminum sharpened with diamonds.

Pluto's Heart

Parker Solar Probe

Just launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida, on a Delta IV rocket, the Parker Solar Probe will speed past Venus seven times to slow it down for orbit around the Sun. Designed to study the Sun with unprecedented detail, the probe will get closer to the gigantic fusion reaction at the center of our Solar System than any spacecraft before it. One major goal of the mission is to determine why the Sun's corona is hotter further from the surface of the Sun. Mercury orbits the sun at a mean distance of 36 million miles. The Parker Solar Probe will be catching rays at only 3.8 million miles from the Sun making 24 passes over the next 7 years.

Parker Solar Probe (Artist Rendition)

One of the chief science instruments on board is a camera—the Wide-field Imager for Solar Probe (WISPR). There isn't a ton of data on the optics of the camera, but they capture images through one of two nested wide-field telescopes (each with a different focal length) with 2000x2000 pixel APS CMOS "detectors." The cameras will, amongst other things, derive the 3D structure of the solar corona and measure the physical properties of elements of the corona and inner heliosphere.

Parker Solar Probe

Although very close to the sun, a sunshield will keep the instruments at a safe 85ºF operating temperature.

Phoenix Mission

Phoenix launched in 2007 and was a lander sent to the surface of Mars to search for evidence of past or present microbial life. Using a robotic arm, it dug up to half a meter into the Red Planet to collect samples and return them to onboard instruments for analysis, verifying the existence of water-ice in the Martian subsurface. The Phoenix lander ended communications in November 2008, about six months after landing, when its solar panels ceased operating in the dark Martian winter.

The Phoenix Lander (artist's rendition)

The craft utilized a robotic-arm camera (RAC) for close-up color images of the Martian soil and ice. The RAC is a box-shaped imager with a double-Gauss lens system, commonly found in many 35mm cameras, coupled to a CCD. At a 1:1 magnification and closest focus, RAC provided an image resolution of 23 microns per pixel.

Stereo imager

Also, the Surface Stereo Imager (SSI), mounted on a mast, provided high-resolution, color, stereo images of the terrain at the landing site and positioning information for use of the arm. The instrument also simulated the resolution of human eyesight using a CCD with 1024 x 1024-pixel images. SSI also had optical and infrared filters.

This image taken by the surface stereo imager on NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander shows the lander's thermal and electrical conductivity probe (TECP), at the end of the Robotic Arm, on the 46th Martian day, or sol, of the mission (July 11, 2008).

Pioneer Program

The Pioneer program sent numerous unmanned craft to explore various parts of our solar system and beyond. The early missions were conducted in the late 1950s and were attempts to escape Earth's gravitational pull and show that it was possible to reach the moon. Later missions of the 1960s and 1970s explored our solar system, including flyby missions to Jupiter and Saturn.

Pioneer

Data transmission varied greatly from mission to mission. Pioneer 1 carried an image scanning infrared television system to study the Moon's surface to a resolution of 0.5 degrees.

Ranger Missions

The Ranger program was a series of unmanned missions with the objective of obtaining the first close-up images of the surface of the Moon. The crafts were to orbit the moon, taking images and transmitting those images to Earth before crash-landing on the surface. Of the nine Ranger missions, the first six ended in failure, but missions 7, 8, and 9 returned thousands of images.

Ranger

Ranger 7 sent more than 4,300 pictures from six cameras that revealed that craters caused by impact were the dominant features of the Moon's surface—great craters were marked by small ones, and the small with tiny impact pockmarks, as far down in size as could be discerned—about 20". Of the six cameras, two were wide angle and four were "narrow angle." The "A" camera had an f/1 lens and 25mm focal length and a vidicon target area of 11 x 11mm. The "B" camera had an f/2 lens of 38mm aperture and 76mm focal length. Two of the "P" cameras utilized lenses identical to that of the "A" camera, and two were identical to the lenses used in the "B" camera.

As Ranger 7 impacts the lunar surface, it becomes the first spacecraft to send back images during this maneuver. More than 4,300 pictures are taken on the way down to its target, soon named Mare Cognitum, south of the crater Copernicus.

Surveyor Missions

The Surveyor projects, from 1966-68, were unmanned landers sent to the moon in preparation for the Apollo missions to follow. Surveyor differed from the earlier Ranger missions in that the probes made soft landings on the moon's surface. They tested the technology that would be used in later missions and accumulated much data on lunar chemical and soil minerals and returned almost 90,000 images from five separate sites.

Surveyor

Each Surveyor spacecraft carried a television camera and 70mm pictures were obtained at very high resolution. This photography provided information on the nature of the surface terrain in the immediate vicinity of the spacecraft, as well as the number, distribution, and sizes of the craters and boulders in the area. In addition, a non-landing camera platform was used to map the whole moon from orbit.

Despite the more hazardous terrain in the landing area, Surveyor 7 landed without incident. In addition to acquiring a wide variety of lunar surface data, Surveyor 7 also took pictures of Earth and performed star surveys. Laser beams from Earth were successfully detected by the craft's television camera in a special test of laser-pointing techniques.

Surveyor images included wide-angle and narrow-angle panoramas, focus ranging surveys, photometric surveys, special area surveys, and celestial photography.

The Apollo 12 Lunar Module landed near Surveyor 3 on November 19, 1969. Astronauts Conrad and Bean examined the spacecraft, and they brought back about 10 kg of parts of the Surveyor to the Earth, including its TV camera, which is now on permanent display in the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C.

Viking Series

The Viking 1 and 2 probes, launched in 1975 and both consisted of an orbiter and landers, which safely settled on the surface of Mars. They landed approximately two month apart in late 1976 and operated until 1982 and 1980, respectively.

Viking

The Viking Lander camera design was very different from vidicon framing or CCD array cameras. The lander camera was a facsimile camera with a single, stationary photo-sensor array (PSA), and azimuth and elevation scanning mechanisms. A lander image was generated by scanning the scene in two directions (elevation and azimuth) to focus light onto the photo-sensor array. Its two identical cameras were bolted to the top of the lander body.

The boulder-strewn field of red rocks reaches to the horizon nearly two miles from Viking 2, on Mars's Utopian Plain.

The lenses had a 0.95 cm aperture diameter and 5.37 cm focal length. 4,500 images from the landers and 52,000 pictures from the orbiters were sent back to Earth.

Voyager Series

Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 were both launched in 1977 and are still actively returning data from the farthest reaches of our solar system and beyond. Voyager 1 has been in interstellar space since August 2012 and is the farthest human-made object from the Sun (and Earth). Voyager 2 has visited its destinations—all four gas giant planets—and is on its way to join its twin.

Voyager (artist's rendition)

The Imaging Science Subsystem (ISS) on the Voyager probes is a modified version of the slow-scan vidicon camera designs that were used in the earlier Mariner flights. The ISS consists of two television-type cameras, each with 8 filters in a commandable filter wheel mounted in front of the vidicons.

Voyager snapped a photo of Jupiter's Great Red Spot.

One system has a low-resolution, 200mm wide-angle lens with an aperture of f/3, while the other has a higher-resolution 1500mm narrow-angle f/8.5 lens. On February 14, 1990, Voyager 1 took the last pictures of the Voyager mission. After that set of portraits, the cameras on Voyager 1 and 2 were switched off and the software controlling them removed from the spacecraft.

Images courtesy NASA, JPL, APL