Camera Monitoring Assembly (CMA)
The Camera Monitoring Assembly (CMA) was originally designed for an education and public outreach role on a NASA science mission, but was later procured to fly on a classified earth orbiter mission, to image near-field objects from the spacecraft.
The camera includes two 3-megapixel CMOS color imagers, each with their own optics (narrow and wide fields of view). The wide angle optics utilize a fold mirror to obtain a field of view orthogonal to that of the narrow field lens. Images are processed and JPEG compressed in real-time and buffered to the on-board Flash memory buffer for later readout to the spacecraft. The entire command sequence is automated and executes each time the camera is powered on.
Launch: Classified | Application: Near-field imaging in Earth Orbit | Status: Mission Success |
Features:
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Includes two optics, wide field (88 x 63 deg) and narrow field (29 x 22 deg)
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Two 3-Megapixel, CMOS, color image sensors
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Orthogonal optics views accomplished with fold mirror in WFOV optics
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4 Gigabyte NAND Flash (non-volatile) memory buffer
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10 Megapixel/s maximum pixel rate (720p @ 10fps)
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Bayer pattern interpolation using 5 x 5 filter kernel
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Color space conversion and macroblock conversion for JPEG compression
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Real-Time JPEG compression
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Lossless first-difference predictive compression
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Automated command sequencing at power-on