Nikon Cameras NASA F4

1991, September

The Nikon NASA F4 Electronic Still Camera is one of the first and rarest fully digital cameras with development started in 1987. While Nikon delivered a modified Nikon F4 body, most of the electronics for the digital camera and housings were designed and manufactured by NASA at the Johnson Space Center and other suppliers. It was first flown in September 1991 on board the Space Shuttle Discovery, mission STS-48. Later the cameras were flown on several other Shuttle missions including STS-44, 45, 42, 49, 53, 56 and 61.

Although the camera was often used alone mounted with its Electronics Box, the HERCULES system was built around it: Hand-held Earth-oriented Real-time Cooperative, User-friendly, Location, targeting, and Environmental System. It includes one of the first laptops in space mounted atop the Playback-Downlink Unit (PDU) and the kit also included the HERCULES Attitude Processor (HAP, a gyroscope based geolocation processor with initialization through star alignment shot with Nikon NASA F4 and additionally GPS data, giving up to 0.005 degrees per hour precision), Electronic Still Camera (ESC) Electronics Box (ESCEB) including removable imagery data storage disks, NRL HERCULES Inertial Measurement Unit (HIMU) with the three-axis Honeywell ring laser gyroscope, DA-20 action finder, a night vision image intensifier as well as assorted lenses and cables. It was flown on the STS-53 and 56 missions and was succeeded by the HERCULES-B.