The STARS Team is now building cameras in-house (because of course we are)

The STARS Team is now building cameras in-house (because of course we are)

After kicking off multispectral camera testing, the next logical step for the STARS project at MKII Aerospace was pretty simple:

Build our own cameras. In-house. From the ground up.

Off-the-shelf hardware is great for prototyping, but STARS has some very specific needs—long-duration tracking, harsh environments, tight integration with our own software, and the flexibility to grow with future missions. So the team is now deep into in-house camera development tailored specifically for STARS.

Why build our own cameras?

Short answer: control.

Long answer:

  • Mission-specific performance
    We can tune sensors, optics, and firmware around exactly what STARS needs—whether that’s low-light performance, fast exposure changes, or specific spectral bands.

  • Better integration with our systems
    We’re not fighting closed software or weird limitations. Our cameras can plug directly into MKII’s existing control systems, data pipelines, and visualization tools.

  • Long-term upgrade path
    As STARS evolves, we can swap sensors, update firmware, or refine housings without waiting on a third-party product cycle.

  • Cost vs capability balance
    For some missions, high-end commercial gear is overkill. For others, it’s not enough. In-house development lets us hit the sweet spot for each profile.

What the team is working on right now

We’ve broken the in-house camera work into a few main chunks:

1. Sensor selection & evaluation

The team is testing different image sensors to figure out which ones hit our needs for:

  • Low-light performance for night tracking

  • Dynamic range for bright sky + dark foreground scenes

  • Frame rate for smooth tracking of fast-moving objects

We’re running side-by-side sensor comparisons under the same conditions and logging everything: noise levels, hot pixels, latency, and how each one behaves with fast exposure changes.

2. Custom housings and mounts

A big part of STARS is flexibility—these cameras might end up on:

  • Ground tracking mounts

  • Vehicles or field rigs

  • Future UAV or sounding rocket missions

So the mechanical team is:

  • Designing modular housings that can be reconfigured for different missions

  • Building mounting systems that survive vibration, wind, and rough handling

  • Working on weather-resistant options for long outdoor sessions

3. Firmware and control systems

On the software side, we’re building a control stack that lets us:

  • Change exposure, gain, frame rate, and modes on the fly

  • Sync multiple cameras together for multi-angle or multi-band capture

  • Tie camera controls directly into our STARS control interface

The goal: from a single console, STARS operators can control multiple cameras without juggling five different apps and vendor tools.

4. Data pipeline and storage

In-house cameras means in-house data format decisions. The team is:

  • Standardizing on file formats and metadata so everything plays nicely with our analysis tools

  • Optimizing buffering and storage so long sessions don’t choke the system

  • Experimenting with on-the-fly compression and tagging for faster retrieval later

We want it so that when someone says, “Show me that high-altitude tracking run from last Tuesday,” it’s a quick search—not a digital archeology mission.

How this ties into the bigger STARS vision

STARS isn’t just “a camera project.” It’s becoming a full observation and tracking platform for MKII Aerospace—supporting:

  • Rocket and UAV test campaigns

  • Environmental and shoreline monitoring for field operations

  • Night sky, horizon, and atmospheric research

  • Future autonomous and semi-autonomous systems

By owning the camera hardware and the software stack, we can treat imaging as a core capability, not just a bolt-on gadget.

What’s coming next

As in-house camera development moves forward, expect to see:

  • First integrated STARS camera prototypes on tracking mounts

  • Field tests comparing in-house cameras vs commercial systems

  • Deeper integration into mission planning and live operations

  • Experiments with specialized variants (low-light, multispectral, or high-speed)

We’re basically giving STARS its own custom set of “eyes,” and this is just the start.

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