Digital Imaging in Space

• 1. Digital Imaging in Space

2. Christian Sandstrm holds a PhD from ChalmersUniversity of Technology, Sweden. He writes and speaks about disruptive innovation and technological change. 3. This is the first image ever transmittedfrom Mars and back home to earth. 4. Some of the first applications ofdigital imaging back in the1970s were used in outer space. 5. The Viking Lander 1 took thefirst picture from the surface ofMars on July 20 1976. 6. After an 11 month journey, it couldfinally land in the region called Chryse Planitia. 7. The Viking Lander 1 took the first picture from the surface of Mars on July 20 1976. 8. About 4500 images were taken and many of them are so good theyre still used today. 9. Well, it couldnt be aHasselblad this time. (Photo taken at theNasa space center inHuntsville, Alabama) 10. But what cameras were used?A film camera required people and besides,the film needed to be brought back. 11. As the Viking Lander was not going to return to earth, a different technology was needed. 12. In order to send the images back toearth, the photos needed to be digital. 13. Back in those days, the image sensor(CCD) had just been invented and thequality was still poor. 14. Therefore, a kind of scanning technique was used. 15. A photodiode was used. It is a kind of photodetectorthat can convert light into current or voltage. 16. The camera had a rotating tube with a mirror going up and down, sending a continuous stream of light down to an array of 12 pixels. 17. So each picture was built up continuously, row by row and eventually, a pretty good image had been constructed. 18. Thats how the first iconic photos of Mars were taken using digital imaging. 19. Interestingly, some of the early drawbacks of digital imaging have created an incorrectidea about the colours of Mars. 20. When light goes through various colourfilters, an inaccurate image may be created. 21. Therefore, many of those images had an excessive orange nuance. 22. And when the images came back to earth, there was simply no time to correct this. 23. Needless to say, the images were quicklydistributed all over the world. 24. Terry Pratchett once said something like thelie has come halfway around the planetbefore the truth has puts on its shoes. 25. So the myth survives, and lives on. 26. The photos of Mars can serve as anillustration of the early drawbacks of digitalimaging and the shortcomings of society. 27. Apart from the minor shortcomings of digital imaging, the Viking Lander was very successful. 28. The Lander exceeded its lifetimewith some 90 days and worked forabout six years. 29. Its interesting to see how the first applications of digital imaging were in fact very advanced. 30. This seems to be the case withmost digital technologies. 31. The first electroniccalculatorswere called scientific calculators,and were only used in veryextremesettings, suchas NASA anddifferentmilitary applications. 32. The firsttransistor radio technology back in the early 1950swas primarily used in the US Military. 33. Given that digital technology is initially very expensive it has often beennurtured in these kind of segmentswhich are not senstitive to the price tag. 34. In addition to this, it has often brought innew performance attributes that were crucial in this particular application (like the cameras used on Mars). 35. As the price went down overtime and theperformanceincreased, theseproducts reached themass markets later on. 36. Today, we have much morepixels in a simple point and shoot camera thanNASA had when exploring spacein the 1970s. 37. Sources Larry PerkinsDiscovery BlogWikipedia 38. Image attributions 39. Find out more:www.christiansandstrom.org