Malin Space Science Systems Inc

On behalf of Malin Space Science Systems Inc (MSSS), Jacob Schaffner and Dr. Michael Ravine visited Houston in 2024 to accept an award from Lockheed Martin Space for our work developing the Docking Camera (DCAM) for the Orion spacecraft.  It was presented by Lockheed Martin Space and NASA - National Aeronautics and Space Administration Orion program management, including Howard Hu (NASA), who posted on X: "Congratulations to the Malin Space Science Systems team on receiving the 2023 Rigel Award, NASA Orion's Small Business of the Year award! Malin Space was recognized for their exceptional work developing Orion's docking camera, which will be tested during the Artemis II mission.”  After receiving the award, they toured Orion facilities at Lockheed Martin Space Systems and NASA Johnson Space Center. One of the high points was going inside the Orion spacecraft training mock-up and doing a "fit check" of a model of DCAM. Here's Jake and Michael looking out the hatch, while Jake is holding the model of DCAM. The Artemis II Orion spacecraft atop the SLS rocket has rolled out to its launch pad in preparation for launch as early as March 6, 2026. Credit: Malin Space Science Systems / Jacob Schaffner

The Docking Camera (DCAM) that Malin Space Science Systems Inc (MSSS) developed for NASA - National Aeronautics and Space Administration's crewed Orion spacecraft has features unlike any MSSS camera that's come before it. Unlike our cameras on robotic spacecraft, DCAM is handled by Orion's astronaut crew and is designed to return to Earth and be re-used on subsequent missions. The edges are rounded to avoid snagging on pressure suits. The three blue, wingnut-like fasteners are designed to be operated by the gloved hand of a pressure suit and without tools. And note the blue handle—DCAM is the first space camera MSSS has built with a handle. DCAM takes images at video frame rates, compresses them in real-time, and streams the data on a gigabit Ethernet interface through the Orion avionics to a display unit used to pilot Orion. This image shows the front (upper) and back (lower) sides of the DCAM unit that will fly out to the Moon and return to Earth on NASA's Artemis II mission. The Artemis II Orion spacecraft atop the SLS rocket has rolled out to its launch pad in preparation for launch as early as March 6, 2026. Credit: Malin Space Science Systems / Rolf Dahl-Hansen Jr.

Two days before the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) Arizona State University (ASU) Psyche launched on 13 October 2023, Psyche development team members were allowed out to Kennedy Space Center (KSC) Pad39A where the Psyche spacecraft sat atop a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket. This was cool for those of us from Malin Space Science Systems (MSSS), as we spent the last nine years building the two cameras on Psyche, called the Psyche Multispectral Imager (PMI). And this was even cooler because this launch was from Pad 39A, which is where all but one of the Apollo missions to the Moon were launched. Here’s me with Pad 39A and Psyche’s SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket in the background, two days before it took off. Amazing. The Psyche Mission is operated by the ASU School of Earth and Space Exploration and the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), under the leadership of Principal Investigator Lindy Elkins-Tanton. Jim Bell, also of ASU, is the lead for the imagers. Psyche launched from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center (KSC) on 13 October 2023. It will arrive at asteroid 16 Psyche in 2029. Credit: Malin Space Science Systems Inc/Matthew Clark.

On 29 April 2023, Malin Space Science Systems (MSSS) technician Ronald Quillin completed the final integration of the camera head for the Psyche Multispectral Imager (PMI) flight unit 3. Now referred to as Imager A, it is on its way to the asteroid 16 Psyche on the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) Arizona State University (ASU) Psyche spacecraft. This image shot over Ron’s shoulder shows the PMI FM3 unit, with the black base of the camera bolted to the gold-colored handling fixture. The instrument electronics are in that black base. On “top” of the electronics box (slightly down and left in this image) is the filter wheel and the motor that drives it (inside the black cylinder on the left side of the camera. Moving further down and left is the telescope, wrapped in a heater that has an aluminum foil outer surface. Further down and left is the instrument’s sunshade, which reduces scattered light into the camera. The Psyche Mission is operated by the ASU School of Earth and Space Exploration and the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), under the leadership of Principal Investigator Lindy Elkins-Tanton. Jim Bell, also of ASU, is the lead for the imagers. Psyche launched from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center (KSC) on 13 October 2023. It will arrive at asteroid 16 Psyche in 2029. Credit: Malin Space Science Systems Inc/Michael Ravine.

For any space mission Malin Space Science Systems (MSSS) has built cameras for, we always ask to clean the camera optics one final time before the mission is launched. Behind me in this image is the NASA JPL Arizona State University (ASU) Psyche spacecraft at Astrotech Space Operations (@astrotechspace) in Titusville, Florida on 25 September 2023. Above and to the right of my head, the ends of the two Psyche Multispectral Imager (PMI) units project from the side of the spacecraft. We got to ride the scissor lift in the picture a couple of times, to inspect and clean the two cameras. Cantilevered twenty feel off the concrete floor, right up against a half-billion dollar spacecraft, there was no pressure there. Anyway, the imagers had been kept pretty clean while on the spacecraft, so all we had to do was to vacuum up a few small particles and then thank the crew for their for the help in enabling us to get that done. The Psyche Mission is operated by the ASU School of Earth and Space Exploration and the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, under the leadership of Principal Investigator Lindy Elkins-Tanton. Jim Bell, also of ASU, is the lead for the imagers. Psyche launched from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center (KSC) on 13 October 2023. It will arrive at asteroid 16 Psyche in 2029. Credit: Malin Space Science Systems Inc / Tony Ghaemi.

This is an image of the two Psyche Multispectral Imager (PMI) flight units, taken in a cleanroom at Malin Space Science Systems (MSSS) after we finished putting them together and testing them. Each PMI unit is about 14 inches long. The upper black cylindrical section is a composite sunshade to shield the PMI optics from sunlight. The lower silver cylinder the PMI telescope, which also has a composite tube, hidden here by a heater with an aluminum outer layer. The base of the telescope mates to the filter wheel housing—the filter wheel itself is in the disk-shaped projection from the housing. Below the filter wheel is the PMI electronics box. Those electronics convert photons hitting the detector to bits, and send them along for further processing. The Psyche Mission is operated by the ASU School of Earth and Space Exploration and the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, under the leadership of Principal Investigator Lindy Elkins-Tanton. Jim Bell, also of ASU, is the lead for the imagers. Psyche launched from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center (KSC) on 13 October 2023. It will arrive at asteroid 16 Psyche in 2029. Credit: Malin Space Science Systems Inc / Rolf Dahl-Hansen Jr.

Frost in San Diego? At Malin Space Science Systems Inc (MSSS), the team was preparing for the launch of the Psyche Multispectral Imager (PMI), a pair of cameras developed for NASA’s mission to the main belt asteroid 16 Psyche. Psyche is believed to be the largest metal asteroid, an estimated 140-mile-wide sphere of iron. The “multispectral” capability of PMI involves eight filters that capture images across eight different wavelength bands. One such image, taken from the Canyonview Cleanroom at MSSS’s San Diego facility, was captured at 948 nm. At that wavelength, chlorophyll doesn’t absorb sunlight, making the leaves appear unusually bright. To the eye, it resembles frost on the palm tree leaves, a rare sight in San Diego. The Psyche mission is operated by Arizona State University’s School of Earth and Space Exploration, led by Principal Investigator Lindy Elkins-Tanton. Jim Bell, also of ASU, serves as the lead for the imagers. The spacecraft launched from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center on October 13, 2023, nearly two years ago and has since been making its way toward asteroid 16 Psyche. Credit: MSSS / Michael Caplinger / Michael Ravine

At Malin Space Science Systems Inc (MSSS), our VP of Project Management and New Business Development combines strategic leadership with a strong foundation in science. Dr. Michael Ravine’s academic background includes physics, geology, and geophysics. While his primary role focuses on managing projects and driving new business, he occasionally gets to contribute directly to scientific research. About two years ago, he presented at the COSPAR conference in Athens, showcasing MSSS’s imaging of Ganymede using JunoCam, captured during NASA’s Juno mission flyby of Jupiter’s largest moon. The project held personal significance: his first research experience as a student at Caltech in 1980 involved analyzing images of Ganymede taken by the Voyager spacecraft the year before. Now, more than four decades later, he’s helped develop another camera system that returned to Ganymede and captured even better imagery, at least of the regions JunoCam covered. It’s a full-circle moment that reflects both technological progress and a lifelong passion for planetary science. Credit: Laura Ravine

The NASA JPL Juno spacecraft flew by Ganymede in June of 2021. Junocam, built and operated by Malin Space Science Systems (MSSS), imaged a large chunk of Ganymede that hadn’t been seen since the Voyager 1 spacecraft flew by in 1979. In this image we see a full resolution view of one of the interesting features we covered, the crater Tros. It’s visible in the earlier image, the very bright crater with rays shooting out in many directions—like Tycho, the prominent rayed crater on the Moon. As it turns out, Tros also happens to be about the same size as Tycho, about 57 miles in diameter. Looking at this close-up, Tros is the circular feature in center of the image. While it is similar to craters of the same size on the Moon (raised rim, flat floor), is it different in several interesting ways. In the middle of the crater is a pit, and to make things more complicated, in that pit is a small dome, not something seen on the Moon (though there are similar-looking craters on Mars). The crater and it’s rays are very bright, like 5-10X brighter than the craters on the Moon. And it also turns out to be 4X shallower than craters of the same diameter on the Moon. These last two differences have the same cause: the crust of Ganymede is mostly water ice, not rock. The ice is believed to have a rocky component that makes it gray, but that rocky component is near the surface. When a multiple km asteroid slammed into Ganymede to make Tros, it punched down deep, bringing up clean ice, making the crater and its rays really, really bright. Around the margins of the image, you can also see many other craters and the “grooved terrain” that covers most of Ganymede. Credit: NASA/SwRI/JPL-Caltech/Malin Space Science Systems/Björn Jónsson

This picture shows (left to right), Jacob Schaffner, Scott Brylow and Rolf Dahl-Hansen Jr. of Malin Space Science Systems (MSSS) working together to take an image of the Moon with the ShadowCam instrument, one night in Ramona, CA. ShadowCam was built by Malin Space Science Systems (MSSS) for NASA - National Aeronautics and Space Administration under contract to Arizona State University (ASU) as a NASA contribution to the Korean Pathfinder Lunar Orbiter (KPLO) mission to the Moon. Mark Robinson of ASU is the ShadowCam Principal Investigator. KPLO arrived in orbit around the Moon in December of 2022 and has been taking great pictures since then. This camera has a fixed focus, so to verify that we set the focus properly, we took the camera outside early this particular morning and shot some images of the Moon. In the image, the bright blob in the sky is the Moon. ShadowCam is above Scott’s head in this image, mounted on a tripod with a motor driver we used to scan it across the Moon. In this image, ShadowCam’s telescope tube is very dark because we are looking at the bare graphite composite of that tube—the shiny gold MLI thermal blanket shown in the previous post was not yet installed. The images we acquired demonstrated that ShadowCam was in focus. And now it’s orbiting the Moon on KPLO, taking in-focus images of the Permanently Shadowed Regions (PSRs) near the lunar poles. Credit: Malin Space Science Systems Inc/Michael Ravine