Having successfully looped around the Moon and returned safely to Earth, taking its four man crew farther from home than any humans before, Artemis II's mission is now complete.
During that historic journey, iconic Earth images were stored on ProGrade Digital CFexpress Type B Iridium memory cards — including the same 400GB version that's currently available to buy on Amazon for $459.99.
That connection between a real lunar mission and a product anyone can buy makes this one of the cooler, more unusual pieces of camera gear I’ve come across. It isn’t tied to simulations or lab claims, but to hardware trusted during an actual crewed flight beyond the Moon.
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ProGrade Digital entered into a Space Act agreement with NASA to support Artemis missions using its CFexpress Type B Iridium cards.
The hardware was chosen from several commercial options after testing showed it capable of handling harsh conditions similar to those found in space.
“The lunar surface presents very challenging environments for cameras and related storage media,” said Jeremy Myers, HULC Handheld Universal Lunar Camera COTS hardware lead. “The partnership developed between NASA and ProGrade will help ensure images and video are captured reliably when humanity returns to the Moon”.
“Through diligent teamwork between the ProGrade San Jose engineering team, NASA’s Space Systems Department at the Marshall Space Flight Center, and key memory technology supplier – Phison Electronics – we were able to go from sample submission to hardware delivery in just under 18 months," said Wes Brewer, founder, and CEO of ProGrade Digital.
"During qualification, our cards were placed into the extreme environmental conditions uniquely encountered in outer space, over many hours of testing to maximize the reliable capture and playback of still images and video in the specially designed Nikon Z9 camera was possible."
"Perhaps the best part of this accomplishment is for our everyday customers, who can now buy memory cards that will be used in the Handheld Universal Lunar Camera during future Artemis missions.”
The same card family is part of the Space Act agreement supporting the Handheld Universal Lunar Camera, or HULC, system planned to land on the lunar surface as part of NASA’s Artemis III mission.
This 400GB card supports read speeds up to 3550MB/s and sustained write speeds up to 850MB/s, giving it the bandwidth needed for large RAW files and high-resolution video. That speed will perfectly suits photographers (on or off Earth) working with 4K or 8K footage.
Compatibility with CFexpress Type B cameras and backward support for XQD devices makes it useful across a wide range of professional camera bodies.
Owning the same storage hardware used to capture real images during humanity’s latest journey around the Moon is a rare crossover between space exploration and everyday photography equipment. It's a cool thing to own, even if the photographs and videos you store on it are likely to be of a more down to Earth nature.