[account42]

PanoTools[0] has been around since 1998 and I doubt that was the first implementation of the idea ;)

Unlike your phone, I'd imagine NASA knows the position and orientaion of the camera for each picture and has precisely measured and calibrated their lens parameters even before launch, so hopefully there is not much manual work to do. Hopefully they can also rotate the camera around its focal point. On the other hand, phones have a continous stream of pictures which can make things easier.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panorama_Tools