Missile camera

A rocket camera is a small rocket with a camera as its payload , which allows aerial photographs to be taken. The camera housed in the tip of the rocket is triggered either by a timer (for example in the form of a clockwork or an electronic delay switch ), a radio remote control or the ejection charge of the propellant (as with the Astrocam ).

The rockets used in rocket cameras are all solid propellants, although the use of liquid and hybrid engines is in principle also conceivable. The peak height of rocket cameras is usually 500 meters. Higher heights are of course possible, but mostly impractical for reasons of German explosives law (regarding rocket propellants), air law and the difficulty of finding the capsule again.

The rocket camera usually takes its pictures on photographic material, although a video or digital camera version , with storage of the pictures on magnetic data carriers or in digitized form on a chip or with radio transmission would also be possible.

The first rocket camera was developed at the beginning of the 20th century and is now exhibited in the Deutsches Museum . As the rockets used for rocket cameras usually are not taxable, which may photographer the male subject not set. For this reason, rocket cameras have never had a major role in professional technology.

Even if this term is not used for these devices, every research rocket equipped with a camera and every spacecraft equipped with a camera represents a rocket camera. They are of great interest to model builders , whereby either an in-house construction consisting of a correspondingly powerful model rocket and a correspondingly modified miniature or digital camera can be used or in the form of the model rockets Astrocam and Oracle , which carry a pocket camera or digital camera in their tip .