CCD usage onboard unmanned space missions, CCD usage onboard unmanned space missions Options

[Guest_Lunik9_*]

In 1969, CCD-technology was demonstrated for the very first time and the first use of a CCD in astronomy was accomplished by NASA-JPL in 1975 at the 1.52 m telescope at Mount Lemmon - AZ to image the planet Uranus.
However, I would like to find out which (deep) space mission was the very first to use CCD technology... probably an Earth remote sensing mission.

For ESA's deep space mission I guess this was the 1985 Giotto mission to comet Halley?

[ugordan]

Hmm. Galileo's SSI was an old design and it might have been the first to use a CCD, although not the first to fly.

[tedstryk]

Vega-1 Vega 2, and Phobos 2 all used CCDs before Galileo, although Galileo's CCD was built first (I think - not 100% sure exactly when the Vega CCDs were built).

[Paolo]

while not a deep space mission, the first spacecraft to use CCDs as far as I know where the KH-11 spy sats, which started flying in 1976

[Guest_Lunik9_*]

Earliest reference I could find;
1980: Russian “ Meteor I-30 “ satellite ( equipped with1-pixel-wide "pushbroom" CCD )

Still curious to know which were the first scientific/planetary missions to use CCD technology...


The post above yours has a reference to an earlier use, so I'm not sure why you posted that.

[NGC3314]

Hubble appears to have been the first dedicated astronomical mission to use CCDs (not surprising since the project paid for a lot of development, which also produced spinoff detectors for many other projects including the first numerous ground-based astronomical CCDs, the 800x800 TI chips). Launched 1990, the CCDs (though probably not everything else) would have been ready for the original 1986 date. So far, that would put the Vegas and Giotto as the first CCD science uses actually in space.