Nikon and NASA are placing mirrorless cameras on the Moon

Nikon is working with NASA to create a mirrorless digital camera that astronauts will use to doc their return to the Moon through the company's upcoming Artemis III mission. On Thursday, NASA introduced that it has entered right into a House Act settlement with Nikon to develop the Handheld Common Lunar Digicam (HULC), a digital camera designed to seize imagery in low mild and survive within the harsh lunar surroundings. The system is there.

The crewed Artemis III mission – which is able to “launch no sooner than September 2026” – goals to discover the lunar south pole, a area of the Moon that comprises water ice inside completely shadowed craters. This makes it an space of ​​scientific curiosity, however the excessive mild and temperature circumstances create particular technical challenges for working devices throughout the lunar south pole area.

Nikon's full-frame Z9 flagship has already been utilized in thermal, vacuum and radiation testing previous to the settlement, with a modified model of the digital camera with Nikkor lenses forming the idea of the HULC system. The HULC design additionally implements a NASA-designed thermal blanket to guard the digital camera from mud and excessive temperatures, and modified electrical parts to scale back potential issues attributable to radiation. A customized grip with modified buttons has been used to make it simpler for appropriate crew members to function the digital camera system whereas carrying gloves.

In accordance with Nikon, its cameras have been included on each crewed house flight for the reason that 1971 Apollo 15 mission, which carried a modified Nikon Photomic FTN. Nonetheless, mirrorless cameras – a sort of digital digital camera that doesn't mirror photographs into the viewfinder via mirrors like DSLRs – didn't exist after we final despatched astronauts to the Moon on the 1972 Apollo 17 mission. As a substitute crew members used modified large-format cameras, which lacked viewfinders altogether, requiring pictures to be taken at chest stage.

Not solely will the HULC have a viewfinder however the Nikon Z9's onboard video capabilities will allow Artemis crew members to seize each nonetheless imagery and video on the identical machine. Apollo crew members had to make use of separate cameras for pictures and video, such because the remotely operated TV digital camera to movie the Apollo 17 lunar takeoff, many of the digital camera tools nonetheless current on the Moon's floor to this present day.