Does the Voyager spacecraft have digital cameras?

The Voyager uses a Vidicon camera. Instead of a digital CCD sensor, it has an analog tube sensor. It's sort of the reverse of an old CRT TV set. Pictures take a long time to capture (like 15s to minutes) and then the sensor area has to be "cleared" after each shot by flooding it with light. It only captured about 800x800 "pixels". read more

Voyager flew with the last vidicon cameras (which dated back to the Ranger missions) and using analog A-to-D converters. Galileo was the next craft NASA/JPL designed, and it had to jump over Saticon technology for custom CCDs in the civilian market. read more

Voyager's optical camera was digital, with a camera tube similar to TV cameras of the period. The initial analog signal was converted to a digital format that had a resolution of 800 x 800 pixels and transmitted back to NASA. CCDs were not used. read more

The Voyager primary mission was completed in 1989, with the close flyby of Neptune by Voyager 2. The Voyager Interstellar Mission (VIM) is a mission extension, which began when the two spacecraft had already been in flight for over 12 years. read more