New Delhi:
The photographs of NASA's 'melted camera', being set up to capture Tuesday's SpaceX Falcon 9 launch, are currently doing rounds on social networking sites.
While the photographs have already gone viral on social media, inviting assumptions of many kinds, the American space agency on Sunday took to explain the real reason behind the same.
According to NASA, a grass fire, which started by the launch of a SpaceX Falcon 9 earlier this week, toasted the camera, which belonged to NASA photographer Bill Ingalls.
"Earlier this week, a remote camera set up a quarter of a mile away from the launch pad MELTED 🔥🔥🔥 following our #GRACEFO launch," NASA tweeted on Saturday.
Interestingly, the damaged camera captured its own demise and the photo spread like fire across the world as the memory card was found to be intact.
What Really Happened to that Melted NASA Camera? https://t.co/kg3wFBCUlm pic.twitter.com/kBdT6OGjjq
— NASA HQ PHOTO (@nasahqphoto) May 25, 2018
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Though many people assumed that the camera was set up too close to the launch pad, actually it was the one Ingalls set up furthest from the pad. It was a quarter of a mile away from the launch site.
"I had six remotes, two outside the launch pad safety perimeter and four inside," said Ingalls.
"Unfortunately, the launch started a grass fire that toasted one of the cameras outside the perimeter," he added.
However, accepting the camera was destroyed, Ingalls rushed to the site and opened the body to check whether the memory card of the camera could be rescued. He finally salvaged the memory card, this is why people got a chance to see the fire engulfing the camera.
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The camera, being dubbed as ''toasty", is expected to be displayed somewhere at NASA headquarters in Washington, DC, according to NASA.
On the professional front, Ingalls is scheduled to travel to Kazakhstan and will photograph the June 3 landing of the International Space Station's Expedition 55 crew.
