Introducing a New Series: You're Welcome Wednesday
How Space-Based Technology Benefits Life on Earth
Hello fellow space enthusiasts!
Today I am testing out a new series called “You’re Welcome Wednesday.”
Within, I will highlight how technology originally developed for use in space can have wide-reaching benefits for life on Earth.
While those who work in or follow the space industry are well aware that 99% of space technology is meant to benefit Earth, the general population probably only hears about space from negative headlines related to the “billionaire space race” or space tourism.
This series is meant to combat that disconnect in a way that non-space people can relate to.
Without further ado, here is “You’re Welcome Wednesday #1: Phone cameras, HD video, and CMOS sensors”
Did you know that cell phone cameras and HD video are both enabled by space technology?
Spaced-based tech is all around us, but perhaps the most ubiquitous technology spinoff from NASA into larger society is what’s behind cell phone cameras and HD video:
Complementary Metal Oxide Semiconductor (CMOS) image sensors.
WHAT ARE CMOS SENSORS? WHY WAS NASA USING THEM?
CMOS sensors essentially enable cameras to be smaller and more energy-efficient compared to other types of imaging sensors (namely charge-coupled device (CCD) sensors). While CCD sensors enabled the 1st generation of high-quality digital photography in the 1980s, they require A LOT of power to capture high-quality images.
In 1990, NASA Jet Propulsion Lab (JPL) engineer Dr. Eric Fossum decided to investigate how to make digital images with smaller and lighter CMOS sensors, in order to miniaturize cameras on interplanetary spacecraft.
While we still care about reducing weight of satellites launched to space in the modern day, reducing a satellite’s weightwas even more important in 1990—it cost >$50,000/kg to reach space aboard the Space Shuttle in the 1980s and 1990s (which compares to ~$3,000/kg in 2022)!
Keeping that in mind, it makes sense why Dr. Fossum wanted to research how to replace larger and heavier CCD sensor cameras with smaller CMOS sensor cameras.
However, at the onset of Dr. Fossum’s research, CMOS sensors were not able to capture the same quality of image that CCD sensors could capture. Dr. Fossum’s research focused on improving image quality by reducing the signal noise that plagued existing CMOS sensors, and eventually his team was able to create CMOS Active Pixel Sensors (CMOS-APS) that solved this problem.
In its early days the CMOS-APS technology didn’t yet perform as well as the scientific-grade CCD imagers, but the potential to the disrupt the photography technology industry was clear.
These new CMOS-APS sensors had low power requirements and could be integrated onto computer chips, a development that would make CMOS-APS imagers more compact, reliable, and inexpensive—perfect for space missions, where every kg not brought to space saves thousands of dollars.
COMMERCIALIZATION OF CMOS SENSORS
Dr. Fossum and his team knew there was potential for their new CMOS sensors to benefit both NASA, as well as society at large. While he was initially met with skepticism, Dr. Fossum was able to sign Technology Cooperation Agreements with several companies and in 1995 became the 1st JPL scientist to license their own invention for commercial use.
In 1996 Dr. Fossum left JPL to run the company he created to commercialize his CMOS technology—Photobit. Photobit was successful, shipping well over a million sensors by 2000, but in 2001, management was concerned about the threat of needing to defend its IP in court from competition and the founders sold the company to Micron Technology, which had the resources and production capabilities to further develop and scale Photobit’s CMOS technology.
HOW ARE CMOS SENSORS UTILIZED TODAY?
In modern day, CMOS tech is now essentially used in all cameras—from cell phones to laptop webcams to DSLR cameras to your car’s rear view camera, and more.
The sensors are perfect for creating cameras that can be integrated into slim cell phones and laptops, and they produce high-quality photos without draining batteries.
With the advent of HD video, eventually the video industry also capitulated and began using CMOS sensors instead of CCD sensors. Shooting HD with CCD sensors requires A LOT of power and overheats the machine, which is inefficient compared to CMOS sensors that allow both the camera and the battery to be smaller when shooting in HD.
CMOS sensors have even been incorporated into medical technology from dental X-ray sensors that deliver lower doses of radiation per X-ray and are small enough to fit inside a patient’s mouth, to ingestible “pill cameras” used as a non-invasive endoscopy technique.
And of course, CMOS sensors are utilized by modern day earth observation satellites that benefit from the combination of high-quality/low power/light weight—this was the original use case from Dr. Fossum’s research after all!
Thanks to these growing constellations of smallsats that utilize CMOS sensors, our ability to monitor global warming, diffuse geopolitical tensions, and enable precision farming (among many other use cases) only improves as more of these satellites are launched into orbit.
So next time you go to take a selfie, instead of saying “Cheese!” try saying “Thank You, NASA!”
For additional reading, check out my sources for this post: