European Space Agency (ESA) has selected Teledyne e2v

The European Space Agency (ESA) has selected Teledyne e2v, part of the Teledyne Imaging Group, to provide image sensor technology for two Copernicus Earth observation missions, the company announced on 14 July.

The two missions, CHIME and CO2M, funded by ESA, incorporate image sensors at the heart of the instruments and will use Teledyne Imaging technology.

The Copernicus Hyperspectral Imaging Mission, CHIME, is a unique visible to shortwave infrared spectrometer that will provide routine hyperspectral observations to support new and enhanced services for sustainable agricultural and biodiversity management, as well as soil property characterisation. The mission will complement Copernicus Sentinel-2, which also features a Teledyne Imaging visible sensor, for applications such as land-cover mapping. Thales Alenia Space France will lead the CHIME industrial consortium.

Dr Miles Adcock, President, Space and Quantum at Teledyne e2v commented “This is excellent news in two respects for the CHIME mission. First, the UK facility has been able to continue the long-standing supply of imaging sensor technology to the Copernicus Sentinels. Second, we have developed a UK infrared detector design and manufacturing capability that utilises the world’s best base detector substrate materials from within the Teledyne Imaging Group.”

The Copernicus Anthropogenic Carbon Dioxide Monitoring (CO2M) mission will carry a near-infrared and shortwave-infrared spectrometer to measure atmospheric carbon dioxide produced by human activity. The mission will comprise a constellation of three spacecraft to map the emissions of carbon dioxide. CO2M will comprise four sensor instruments; CO2I, NO2, Multi-Angle Polarimeter (MAP) and Cloud Imager (CLIM). Teledyne Imaging will supply for the MAP instrument focal plane array (FPA) VNIR CMOS digital image sensors, from its new Capella family (2048 x 2048 10µm pixels), which will also feature as the visible sensors for the CO2I and NO2 instruments.

In addition, the CLIM instrument, which relies on the flight-proven Proba-V design, will use a Teledyne e2v VNIR CCD detector using 4 x 6000 pixels of the quadrilinear 13µm pixel device. The CO2M industrial consortium will be led by OHB-System AG.

Christophe Tatard – Vice President Business and Product Development at Teledyne e2v, added “We have a proud heritage of supplying the Sentinels with CCD and CMOS detectors and with this extension of the programme we are very excited to now be providing a SWIR detector as well as the VNIR detectors.”