15 December 2011

Sofradir wins third space mission contract of year, and biggest to date

Sofradir of Châtenay-Malabry, near Paris, France, which makes cooled infrared (IR) detectors based on mercury cadmium telluride (MCT/HgCdTe) for military, space and commercial applications, has been awarded a contract worth tens of millions of euros to manufacture IR detectors for the engineering and flight model phases for the next generation of European meteorological satellites (MTG, the Meteosat third-generation project). A total of six satellites will be launched under the MTG program.

“This is Sofradir’s third major space contract win this year [after the MUSIS/CSO military imaging system and the Sentinel-5-Precursor satellite mission] and the largest contract win in Sofradir’s history,” says chairman & CEO Philippe Bensussan. “This is a significant achievement on top of the record 26 flight model infrared detectors we delivered for space missions in 2010,” he adds. “We’ve seen our satellite business triple in the last five years, as earth observation spacecraft use more infrared imaging and multi-spectral equipment that increasingly require visible and IR products.”

Within the scope of the five-year MTG contract headed by the European Space Agency (ESA), Sofradir will deliver custom designed IR detectors to satellite and space equipment manufacturer Thales Alenia Space France (TAS-F). The detectors will be integrated in two payloads: the Flexible Combined Imager (FCI) to take IR images of clouds and the InfraRed Sounder (IRS) to analyze the chemical composition of the atmosphere versus altitude. They will operate wavelengths that extend from short-wave infrared (SWIR) to very long-wave infrared (VLWIR) in order to better identify and measure various types of clouds and chemical elements.

In total, Sofradir will develop six different types of detectors, and deliver up to 22 flight models for the MTG program. “It shows we are able to handle big space contracts (several tens of millions of euros),” says Bensussan.

The ESA contract represents the culmination of several years of work that Sofradir has carried out on the MTG program, and enables the firm to progress to the final phase. Sofradir’s first involvement began in 2007, when it participated in the feasibility study in collaboration with CEA/LETI. It then advanced to the preliminary phase, where it developed MCT-based IR detectors for testing.

Sofradir claims that one of the significant characteristics that sets its MCT IR technology apart from competing technologies is its applicability to all wavelengths, from the visible to very long-wave IR (above 15 microns). This enables the firm to use a single production line to manufacture IR detectors at different wavelengths, allowing more efficient supply of detectors for both high-volume production and customized designs.

Tags: Sofradir HgCdTe MCT IR detectors

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