Overview
The Kodak DCS 760 was flown by NASA astronauts across 17 identified missions, in NASA service 2001–2011, contributing 9,612 identifiable frames to the public astronaut photography archive. Traced by manufacturer serial number, at least 20 physical bodies have been identified in the public archive. The Kodak DCS 760 is a 6 MP CCD released by Kodak in 2001.
Body S/N K760C-00681 is the most heavily documented in the archive, contributing 4,479 identifiable frames across 1 missions including ISS004. The other 19 identified bodies appear in more targeted mission windows, detailed below.
Lens metadata for this model is limited in NASA's public releases (Adobe processing strips some manufacturer MakerNote fields). Where lens identification is available in the archive, it appears below.
Exemplar photographs
Additional representative frames captured by the Kodak DCS 760 bodies in orbit. Full resolution is available at the linked NASA archives.
Astronaut Michael Massimino conducts repairs on the Hubble telescope from Space Shuttle Columbia
Half moon setting below the Earth's limb as viewed from Space Shuttle Columbia
In NASA service
The DCS 760 was announced in April 2001 at WPPI at a list price of $7,995. It retained the Nikon F5 body and M16 six-megapixel imager of its DCS 660 predecessor but adopted Kodak's Pro 3 architecture — 12-bit A/D, IEEE 1394 (Firewire) transfer, in-camera JPEG processing, a Motorola MPC823 microcontroller, and a Texas Instruments TMS320C6211 DSP for image processing. Kodak's engineering retrospective describes the 760 as “indestructible” and notes its enduring reputation as a cult camera for portrait and wedding photographers long after its March 2003 discontinuation.1
At NASA, the DCS 760 succeeded the DCS 460 as the primary Kodak digital body and served through the D2Xs transition. The 760 represents the peak of what Nikon's 2010 retrospective called the “F5 and Kodak DCS era” of NASA imaging — the DCS 460, 660, and 760 all shared Nikon-manufactured base bodies, and the 760 was the last of the lineage before the D2Xs took over primary duty around 2007.2
- McGarvey, Jim. The DCS Story: 17 years of Kodak Professional digital camera systems, 1987–2004. Kodak, June 2004.
- Gotō, Tetsuro. “宇宙用ニコン・スペースカメラの開発” [Development of Nikon Space Camera]. Journal of the Society of Photographic Science and Technology of Japan 73, no. 2 (2010): 65–69.
Commercial availability
Kodak DCS 760 on the used market
The bodies documented in this registry are the specific units NASA sent to orbit. The commercial market carries the same Kodak DCS 760 model at accessible prices for collectors, photographers, and researchers. Listings shown are the same model, not the specific bodies flown.
CARES LLC participates in the eBay Partner Network. Purchases via this link may generate commission at no additional cost to you. The listings shown are the same Kodak DCS 760 model used by NASA, not the specific bodies flown.
Bodies identified
Each identifiable body of the Kodak DCS 760 that appears in NASA's public astronaut photography archive, sorted by frame count.