Neptec's Laser Camera System for Return to Flight and Assembly Missions

Neptec's Laser Camera System (LCS) is a wide angle, high-speed, high-precision, laser scanner. Installed at the end of the new extension boom for Canadarm on the Space Shuttle for the Return to Flight missions, the scanner can inspect even hard-to-reach areas on the underside of the Shuttle that cannot normally be viewed from the Shuttle. The scanner gives NASA the ability to detect even fine cracks in the thermal tiles that could prove fatal to the Shuttle during re-entry from orbit.

The LCS uses a synchronized scanning technique, patented by the National Research Council of Canada, to generate high precision three-dimensional data. At distances of up to 10 metres, it can create a model of any object that is accurate to a few millimetres. The LCS is the first three dimensional laser scanner to be space qualified. The LCS was developed by Neptec from a scanner that was originally tested in 2001 on Shuttle flight STS-105.

The LCS offers a significant advantage over a traditional video camera because it not only provides full three-dimensional surface information, but it is also immune to the effects of changing lighting conditions. This immunity is very important since typically the sun rises and sets 16 times a day while the Shuttle is in orbit.

The LCS's range of space applications also includes the ability to track and calculate the position and orientation of objects in space. In this mode, the LCS can be used to guide space robots such as the Canadarm and Canadarm2, or as a sensor to guide spacecraft as they manoeuvre to dock with one another in space.