Teledyne awarded $9.98 million to supply IR detectors for Jupiter mission

News

March 21, 2017

THOUSAND OAKS, Calif. Teledyne Scientific & Imaging, a Teledyne Technologies subsidiary, has been awarded a $9.98 million contract from the French Space Agency -- the Centre National d??tudes Spatiales (CNES) -- to provide infrared detectors and electronics for the European Space Agency (ESA) JUICE mission to Jupiter. JUICE -- the ESA's acronym for JUpiter Icy moon Explorer -- is expected to launch in 2022 and reach Jupiter in 2030 to undertake a 3 1/2-year study of Jupiter and three of its moons: Callisto, Ganymede, and Europa.

Teledyne is tasked with delivering infrared detectors and focal plane electronics to the Institut d’Astrophysique Spatiale (IAS) for use in the MAJIS instrument that IAS is developing for the JUICE mission. MAJIS, one of ten instruments included in the JUICE science payload, will study the composition of Jupiter’s atmosphere and the surfaces of Jupiter’s satellites using two spectral channels that operate in the visible-near infrared (0.50 to 2.35 micron) and mid-infrared (2.25 to 5.20 micron) wavelengths.

The Teledyne IR detectors included on the ESA mission will be its H1RG 1,024 by 1,024 pixel arrays; similar detectors are already deployed on several space missions, including the Hubble Space Telescope, the WISE all-sky infrared survey, the Orbiting Carbon Observatory, and the OSIRIS-REx asteroid rendezvous mission. Teledyne intends to deliver the detectors and electronics to the IAS within 24 months.