This clip of an astronaut chasing a memory card in space is hilarious… but it also makes me think seriously about storage

Credit: NASA via r/ArtemisProgram

I've never changed memory cards in microgravity, but I can't stop laughing at a viral 15-second video clip from Artemis II that shows even something as simple as swapping cards can be a challenge in space.

During a livestream. Astronaut Christina Koch, floating inside NASA's Orion capsule during the Artemis II lunar flyby, ejects a memory card from her Nikon in the background. The camera's memory card eject feature proved to be a little too powerful for microgravity, and it shoots away from her in the weightless cabin. For a brief, slightly comic moment, she has to chase it down before it vanishes somewhere inside the spacecraft.

It made me laugh. Then it made me think. We obsess over cameras and lenses, but storage is what actually holds the image once you've made it. Most of us choose it on price and write speed, then stop thinking about it. The experiences of the astronauts on the Artemis II mission are a prompt to think harder.

What kit were they using?

The crew flew with Nikon D5 bodies as their primary cameras, a choice that reflects NASA's preference for proven, battle-hardened equipment over the latest technology. A Nikon Z9 was also brought along for evaluation and to use for higher-resolution video and stills, but the workhorse was the D5: a body launched in 2016 and still trustworthy when the stakes could not be higher.

The card that was shot out in the clip was almost certainly a CompactFlash model, based on the D5's slot configuration and serial number data visible in the mission's EXIF files. The more significant story, however, involves the Z9 and the CFexpress Type B cards chosen to go with it.

ProGrade Digital entered into a formal Space Act agreement with NASA to supply CFexpress Type B Iridium cards for the Artemis program. These are not special space-only products, though; the 400GB version used on the mission is currently available on Amazon for $459.99. What makes them different is what they went through to get there.

The cards were subjected to extreme temperature cycling, radiation exposure and sustained performance testing over 18 months, in partnership with NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center and memory chip supplier Phison Electronics. The radiation element was obviously a big concern. Cosmic rays can corrupt individual bits of stored data, and the longer storage media spends beyond Earth's protective magnetosphere, the greater the cumulative risk.

The 400GB Iridium delivers read speeds of up to 3,550MB/s and sustained write speeds of 850MB/s. That sustained write figure is the one that matters most: burst speed is easy to advertise, but sustained performance under continuous load is what separates reliable professional cards from everything else.

Why this matters 

Of course, you don't need to be on a spaceship to care about the reliability of your storage. Cards fail on assignment, in the rain, in the heat, at high altitude, and typically at the worst possible moment. That doesn't mean you should spend $459.99 on a CFexpress card for your nephew's soccer game. But it does sharpen the question of whether the cheapest card is a false economy.

Speed ratings are testable; environmental durability is much harder to verify. Space qualification is an extreme benchmark, but it is at least a real one, and right now it belongs to a card you can order this afternoon.

Most of us will never shoot in zero gravity or worry about cosmic ray interference. But the next time you're reaching for the cheapest card on the shelf, it's worth remembering that the astronauts circling the Moon had to think about the same question you're glossing over. Knowing that, in their case, they couldn't just send for a firmware update and hope for the best.

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