Artemis II: the 32 cameras of the Orion, the eyes that capture the success of the mission

The space capsule carries 32 cameras and devices — a number that includes any instrument with a lens capable of capturing photos or video — located both inside and outside the ship.

“These systems provide support for engineering, navigation, crew monitoring, and a variety of lunar science and outreach activities,” NASA detailed in a statement.

Fifteen cameras are mounted directly on the spacecraft, while 17 are portable cameras operated by the crew. (composed of Commander Reid Wiseman and astronauts Victor Glover, Christina Koch and Jeremy Hansen), which has already shared several images of the Earth, the Moon, and several ‘selfies’ from the Orion capsule.

In one of the first photographs taken by Wiseman, which has gone viral, the entire planet is observed with the predominant blue of the ocean, swirls of white clouds and a large brown land mass that corresponds to Africa, an image that evokes one captured by the Apollo 17 mission more than half a century ago.

A large portion of the cameras are powered by Redwire Corporation, a Florida-based company responsible for the production and testing of the Orion Camera System for the Artemis I through V missions.

The system consists of 11 internal and external devices intended for inspection and navigation. These include wireless cameras located on each of the capsule’s four solar panels, which allow inspection of the entire spacecraft during flight.

Added to this is the optical navigation camera that provides high-resolution images to the ship’s artificial vision algorithm.allowing the position and speed of Orion to be determined with respect to Earth.

Other cameras record 4K resolution video and 12 megapixel images, in addition to live streaming both the interior and exterior of the spacecraft, including key mission events such as separation, component detachment, structure deployment, and crew demonstrations.

Redwire cameras had already been tested on the Artemis I mission.

Mike Gold, president of Redwire Space, said in a press release that “not all of us can be astronauts,” but thanks to the amazing images that the cameras will capture, the entire world will be able to be part of this journey of discovery that Artemis II represents.

The well-known company GoPro has also sent its cameras aboard Orion, with four specialized and modified devices that are mounted on the wings of the ship’s solar panels.

The California company’s cameras capture high-resolution views of the spacecraft, the Earth and the Moon, while serving as “inspection tools” during critical moments of the mission, the company explained in a statement.

Besides, National Geographic has equipped the four astronauts of the Artemis II mission with GoPro cameras to document daily life during the mission from inside the shipthus helping to narrate the historic flight that hopes to reach an observation point on the hidden side of the Moon this Monday, after traveling the greatest distance ever traveled from Earth: 406,773 kilometers.

This Sunday the astronauts will rehearse the six-hour space exploration scheduled for April 6, in which cameras will be essential.