New Earth Observation Camera Called ISERV Headed To ISS

The International Space Station is set to get a new camera that will be tasked with observing Earth on ISS orbits. The camera system is called ISERV and will launch aboard the Japanese HTV-3 transfer vehicle this week. Once the camera reaches the ISS, it will be installed to allow researchers on the ground to control and acquire images of specific areas of the globe for disaster analysis and environmental studies.

ISERV Pathfinder is an imaging instrument that was designed and built at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Alabama. The spacecraft the camera is aboard will launch today at 10:06 PM from the Tanegashima Space Center in southern Japan. The name ISERV stands for International Space Station SERVIR Environmental Research and Visualization System.

The camera system will be installed in the Window Observational Research Facility inside the ISS Destiny laboratory. The camera is a modified commercial telescope driven by custom software that we use the Earth facing side window aboard Destiny to shoot pictures of the Earth's surface and transmit the data to scientists on the ground. It appears that the camera portion is a standard DSLR camera from the photo.