page_title: MKF-6 (multispectral camera)
section_title: National significance
hierarchical_section_title: MKF-6 (multispectral camera) / National significance
caption_attribution_description: Deutsch: Bediengerät der MKF-6 Kamera von Carl Zeiss Jena zur Bedienung durch die Besatzung eines Sojus-Raumschiffs. Ausgestellt in der Sonderausstellung "40 Jahre Deutsche im Weltall" im Technikmuseum, Berlin
context_page_description: The MKF-6 is a multispectral camera, that was designed and made in East Germany for the purpose of Remote sensing of the earth's surface.
  The device was built by the Kombinat Carl-Zeiss-Jena in cooperation with the Institute for Electronics of the Academy of Sciences of the GDR, where optical elements for the Soviet space program were developed and produced since 1969.
  The MKF-6 permits the combined utilization of photogrammetry and spectroscopy. It was first employed on Soyuz 22 in September 1976 and on all subsequent space flights of the USSR and Russia until the end of the space station Mir in 2001. The camera is considered to be a milestone of celestial cartography and pointed the way to the HRSC camera, which was developed by Jena-Optronik GmbH, a former division of the Jenoptik Group of the Carl Zeiss AG, established in 1992 after German reunification.
  Because of its suitability for espionage, the MKF-6 was never sold to non-Warsaw Pact states.
context_section_description: For the various research institutes of East Germany, the MKF-6 project represented the first steps towards advanced scientific orbital and airborne remote sensing of the earth's surface, the assessment of water and soil quality, military reconnaissance, environmental and meteorological research, among many other fields. Eventually, as a division of the Interkosmos program of the socialist Comecon countries a department for Remote terrestrial sensing was established.
  Considered to be the best spectral camera of its time, the development and construction costs of the MKF-6 camera amounted to 82 million East German marks. The MKF-6 is still occasionally being used. Cooperation between the Soviet Union and Carl-Zeiss-Jena for the equipment of satellites and earth terminals began in the mid-1970s. Altogether around 100 devices, developed and produced in East Germany were utilized in space missions of the Interkosmos program and about 150 devices for ground stations.
caption: MKF-6 control panel
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