issues . please help improve it or discuss these issues on the talk page . learn how and when to remove these template messages the topic of this article may not meet wikipedia s notability guidelines for companies and organizations . please help to establish notability by citing reliable secondary sources that are independent of the topic and provide significant coverage of it beyond its mere trivial mention . if notability can not be established the article is likely to be merged redirected or deleted . find sources neptec design group news newspapers books scholar jstor free images october 2010 learn how and when to remove this template message this article does not cite any sources . please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources . unsourced material may be challenged and removed . october 2010 learn how and when to remove this template message this article contains content that is written like an advertisement . please help improve it by removing promotional content and inappropriate external links and by adding encyclopedic content written from a neutral point of view . october 2010 learn how and when to remove this template message learn how and when to remove this template message neptec design group type private industry machine vision founded 1990 headquarters ottawa ontario canada key people paul nephin ceo products svs lcs tridar number of employees 80 website www.neptec.com neptec design group is an ottawa based canadian vision systems company providing machine vision solutions for space industrial and military applications . privately owned and founded in 1990 neptec is a nasa prime contractor supplying operational systems to both the space shuttle and international space station programs . starting in 2000 neptec began expanding its technology to include active 3d imaging systems and 3d processing software . this work led directly to the development of neptec s laser camera system which is an operational system used by nasa to inspect the shuttle s external surfaces during flight . building on laser camera system technology neptec has also developed a 3d imaging and tracking system designed for automated on orbit rendezvous inspection and docking . the tridar combines a high precision short range triangulation sensor with a long range lidar sensor into the same optical path . laser camera system edit the laser camera system lcs is short range high precision autosynchronous triangulation scanner . the camera uses a laser to measure the distance between itself and points on a target and is able to create a three dimensional representation of the area it has scanned . first demonstrated on the shuttle discovery mission sts 105 in august 2001 neptec s prototype lcs was the first dual target tracking and imaging three dimensional scanner to fly in space . it wasn t until 2004 after the space shuttle columbia tragedy that the lcs became a primary focus to both neptec and nasa . to ensure the safety of future missions nasa required a means to determine the amount of damage if any was sustained by a shuttle during the launch phase . in response to this requirement neptec design group developed the laser camera system lcs in 14 months . the lcs made its first mission in july 2005 on nasa s sts 114 return to flight shuttle mission and was a mandatory system for subsequent shuttle missions . the lcs was part of a larger sensor system that is installed on a 50 foot boom extension that provided additional reach for the remote manipulator system canadarm . this orbiter boom sensor system obss was used to inspect areas of the shuttle that were previously not visible to the astronauts inside . the lcs was used to scan and characterize the underside of the shuttle while in orbit . while looking at the shuttle s tiles and panels from the height of a first story window neptec s scanner was able to detect cracks less than a millimeter thick . because it was a 3d scanner it was also able to measure the depth of cracks or holes that were found . the scanner then sent these measurements to earth where the data was analyzed in detail by neptec engineers in nasa s mission control center in houston texas . during sts 114 critical on orbit data was often processed and in the hands of the space shuttle mission managers within an hour of being collected on orbit . neptec s lcs continued to fly as an operational part of the obss on the remaining space shuttle missions . neptec lcs missions mission date orbiter sts 114 return to flight discovery july 26 2005 sts 121 atlantis july 4 2006 sts 115 discovery september 9 2006 sts 116 atlantis december 9 2006 sts 117 discovery june 8 2007 sts 118 endeavour august 8 2007 retrieved from https en.wikipedia.org w index.php title neptec design group & oldid 705494254 categories space shuttle programspacecraft instrumentsspace camerasengineering companies of canadacompanies established in 1990technology companies of canadacompanies based in ottawahidden categories articles with topics of unclear notability from october 2010all articles with topics of unclear notabilityarticles lacking sources from october 2010all articles lacking sourcesarticles with a promotional tone from october 2010all articles with a promotional tone navigation menu personal tools not logged intalkcontributionscreate accountlog in namespaces article talk variants views read edit view history more search navigation main pagecontentsfeatured contentcurrent eventsrandom articledonate to wikipediawikipedia store interaction helpabout wikipediacommunity portalrecent changescontact page tools what links hererelated changesupload filespecial pagespermanent linkpage informationwikidata itemcite this page print export create a bookdownload as pdfprintable version languages deutsch edit links this page was last modified on 17 february 2016 at 20 49 . text is available under the creative commons attribution sharealike license ; additional terms may apply . by 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