posted 02-03-2004 11:33 PM                       

quote:

---

DALSA-built CCD Chips Deliver Stunning Imagery Of Martian Landscape
Posted 1/6/2004


DALSA-built sensors captured the highest-resolution images ever taken of another planet
Waterloo, Ontario, January 6, 2004 – Three days after successfully landing on Mars, the Mars Exploration Rover “Spirit” has successfully begun transmitting high resolution colour images of the “red” planet. The CCD image sensor chips, designed by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California, were manufactured at DALSA’s semiconductor wafer production facility in Bromont, Quebec.

The space-qualified chips are critical components in the nine electronic cameras aboard each of the two Rovers. “Spirit” landed on Saturday, January 3rd, and “Opportunity,” its twin, is expected to land on the other side of the planet in three weeks. Three cameras on each Rover are responsible for scientific investigation, including panoramic and stereoscopic images. Six other cameras aid in navigating the vehicle on the surface of Mars. The cameras will serve as the vehicle’s “electronic eyes”, as it examines its landing site for geological evidence of past liquid water activity and past environmental conditions hospitable to life.


DALSA-built sensors on the "camera bar"
of each rover provide high-quality
images for analysis and navigation
Spirit’s high resolution “Pancam”, which employs the DALSA-manufactured chips, is the most sophisticated color imaging system ever sent to the surface of another planet and is responsible for the colour images Spirit has transmitted to earth. The stereo pair of CCD cameras is located on a “camera bar” that sits on top of the mast of the Rover and is responsible for taking high resolution views of the surface and sky through eight different coloured filters. Pancam’s mast assembly allows it to rotate a complete 360° while the camera bar itself can swing up or down through 180° of elevation. This allows the cameras to generate stunning panoramic image mosaics as large as 4,000 pixels high by 24,000 pixels around, equivalent to a 96 megapixel image.

“We’re extremely proud of the contribution our employees at Bromont have made to this landmark achievement in space exploration,” commented Savvas Chamberlain, CEO of DALSA Corporation. “We have a good working history with NASA/JPL and we’re thrilled that we can once again play a role in such an important project.”

The Mars Exploration Rover is the second high profile space related project DALSA has been involved in the past several years. Engineers in Waterloo supplied the space-qualified CCD camera electronics for the Canadarm2 robotic arm that was installed at the International Space Station in April 2001.

About DALSA Corporation
DALSA is an international high performance semiconductor and electronics company that designs, develops, manufactures, and markets digital imaging products and solutions, in addition to providing wafer foundry services. DALSA’s core competencies are in specialized integrated circuit and electronics technology, and highly engineered semiconductor wafer processing. Products include image sensor components; electronic digital cameras; and semiconductor wafer foundry services for use in MEMS, power semiconductors, image sensors and mixed-signal CMOS chips.

DALSA is a public company listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange under the symbol “DSA”. Based in Waterloo, ON. Canada, the company has operations in Bromont, PQ; Colorado Springs, CO; Tucson, AZ; Eindhoven, NL; Munich, Germany and Tokyo, Japan.

---

quote:

---

20-20 vision

The Pancam was conceived at Cornell University and built at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Dalsa, based in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada, makes cinema-quality video components and other high-end imaging devices and was called on to make the CCDs for the Pancam and the other cameras on Spirit and its twin rover, Opportunity.

"They are the world's highest performing chips in terms of light sensitivity and chip quality," Myles said in a telephone interview earlier this week.

Overall, how does a Pancam stack up to the typical 5-megapixel camera you might purchase at Best Buy?

"There really isn't any comparison," Myles said.

NASA officials say the camera shows what a human with 20-20 vision would see on the surface of Mars. But anyone who has zoomed in on a distant rock in one of Spirit's color pictures would have to wonder if perhaps Superman's vision might be a better comparison.

Experts argue endlessly about what the human eye can actually see, however. Comparing human vision to what a camera captures "is really up to great speculation," Myles said.

NASA's analogy, Myles explained, is "probably a bit of marketing spin. It helps people visualize the quality." The height and breadth of a Pancam image is roughly equal to what a person would see, taking into account peripheral vision. And the Pancam has a human perspective. It sits atop a mast on the rover, 5 feet (1.4 meters) above the surface.

Myles said the actual image quality probably exceeds human capabilities, especially after the image is processed and a computer is used to provide a zoom function.

---