High Definition Earth Viewing (HDEV) cameras were a payload package delivered to the

International Space Station The International Space Station (ISS) is the largest Modular design, modular space station currently in low Earth orbit. It is a multinational collaborative project involving five participating space agencies: NASA (United States), Roscosmos ( ...

on the

SpaceX CRS-3 SpaceX CRS-3, also known as SpX-3, was a Commercial Resupply Service mission to the International Space Station (ISS), contracted to NASA, which was launched on 18 April 2014. It was the fifth flight for SpaceX's uncrewed Dragon cargo spacecra ...

Mission, launched on April 18, 2014. The High-Definition Earth Viewing camera suite was carried aboard the

Dragon spacecraft American private space transportation company SpaceX has developed and produced several spacecraft named Dragon. The first family member, now referred to as Dragon 1, flew 23 cargo missions to the ISS between 2010 and 2020 before being retired. ...

and is configured on a platform on the exterior of the

European Space Agency , owners = , headquarters = Paris, Île-de-France, France , coordinates = , spaceport = Guiana Space Centre , seal = File:ESA emblem seal.png , seal_size = 130px , image = Views in the Main Control Room (120 ...

's Columbus laboratory module. It was the first large unpressurized NASA experiment to be assigned for delivery to the International Space Station by

SpaceX Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SpaceX) is an American spacecraft manufacturer, launcher, and a satellite communications corporation headquartered in Hawthorne, California. It was founded in 2002 by Elon Musk with the stated goal o ...

. The system is composed of four commercial high definition video cameras which were built to record video of the Earth from multiple angles by having them mounted on the International Space Station. The cameras streamed live video of Earth to be viewed online and on

NASA TV The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil space program, aeronautics research, and space research. NASA was established in 1958, succeeding th ...

on the show Earth Views. Previously-recorded video now plays in a continuous loop on public streaming sites. The HDEV system was developed by engineers at the

Johnson Space Center The Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center (JSC) is NASA's center for human spaceflight (originally named the Manned Spacecraft Center), where human spaceflight training, research, and flight control are conducted. It was renamed in honor of the late ...

in Houston, Texas. High school students also helped design some of the cameras' components, through the High Schools United with

NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil space program, aeronautics research, and space research. NASA was established in 1958, succeedin ...

to Create Hardware program, and teams of students were expected to remotely operate the experiment. The system is configured on the Columbus – External Payload Facility, which is a platform on the exterior of the European Space Agency's Columbus laboratory module where it was used to perform experiments to help NASA determine which cameras work best in outer space. The cameras are enclosed in a temperature-specific housing and exposed to the harsh radiation of space. The German educational projec
“Columbus Eye - Live Imagery from the ISS in Schools”
which is executed by the

University of Bonn The Rhenish Friedrich Wilhelm University of Bonn (german: Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn) is a public research university located in Bonn, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It was founded in its present form as the ( en, Rhine ...

and is funded by the

German Aerospace Center The German Aerospace Center (german: Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt e.V., abbreviated DLR, literally ''German Center for Air- and Space-flight'') is the national center for aerospace, energy and transportation research of Germany ...

(DLR), aims at the implementation of the ISS live imagery and videos in a web portal. It primarily acts as a learning portal for pupils, but also serves as a free access archive for the footage of the ISS HDEV cameras. Columbus Eye accompanied the ISS mission of the German ESA astronaut

Alexander Gerst Alexander Gerst (born 3 May 1976 in Künzelsau, Baden-Württemberg) is a German European Space Agency astronaut and geophysicist, who was selected in 2009 to take part in space training. He was part of the International Space Station Expediti ...

(May to November 2014). On August 22, 2019, the experiment reached its end of life. Originally expected to operate 1 to 3 years, it continued for over 5 years, attaining over 318 million views. The HDEV system was removed from the Columbus module on May 7, 2020, and transferred into the Cygnus NG-13 resupply spacecraft for disposal via destructive re-entry at the end of its mission. Following HDEV end of life, two of the International Space Station External High Definition Cameras (EHDCs) have been used to provide video to the HDEV live feed. The Node 2 Zenith EHDC was used until the installation of the S3 (Starboard 3) Aft EHDC.

References

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External links

NASA: HDEV Website
(experiment details)
University of Bonn & DLR: Columbus Eye WebsiteHDEV Final Report
SpaceX payloads contracted by NASA Spacecraft launched in 2014 Spacecraft decommissioned in 2019 International Space Station Space photography and videography Streaming Satellite video

See also

References

External links