23 cameras on NASA’s 2020 Mars rover tagged posts

A selection of the 23 cameras on NASA’s 2020 Mars rover. Many are improved versions of the cameras on the Curiosity rover, with a few new additions as well. Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech UPDATED AT 4:15 p.m. PDT to correct the number of EDL cameras shown in the image. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

When NASA’s Mars Pathfinder touched down in 1997, it had five cameras: 2 on a mast that popped up from the lander, and three on NASA’s first rover, Sojourner. Since then, camera technology has taken a quantum leap. Photo sensors that were improved by the space program have become commercially ubiquitous. Cameras have shrunk in size, increased in quality and are now carried in every cellphone and laptop.

That same evolution has returned to space...