Sodern
Innovation based on experience
|
|
| Industry | Space instrumentation, optics and neutron |
|---|---|
| Predecessor | Astrium (EADS Group) |
| Founded | 1962 |
| Headquarters | Limeil-Brévannes, France |
| Products | Stars Trackers, C.N.A., strip filters |
| 65 M€ | |
|
Number of employees
|
350 |
| Parent | AIRBUS GROUP |
| Website | http://www.sodern.com |
Sodern is a French company based in Limeil-Brévannes, near Paris in Ile-de-France, specialized in space instrumentation, optics and neutron analyzers.
Sodern was created in 1962 in the Philips' Laboratory of Electronics and Applied Physics (LEP) to launch a first generation of external neutron sources.
In the late sixties, Sodern began to diversify its activities towards optical and high-tech space sensors, for which it is today the global leader. In the early 70s, on CNES demand, Sodern realized the first European Earth sensors, sensors dedicated to the attitude control of the experimental telecommunication satellite Symphonie.
In 1975, the European Space Agency (ESA) subcontracted the manufacturing of multiple instruments for the Spacelab. Sodern achieved a high-precision scoring system dedicated to readjust the inertial and to high-performance attitude measurement. Sodern also delivered SED04 stars trackers for the Instrument Pointing System (IPS) of the Spacelab observatory. These sensors had a precision of 0.75 seconds of arc, thus the precision needed to see "a golf ball from a 10 km [6.2-mile] distance".
Meanwhile, in the mid-1990s, Sodern enhanced its optical instrumentation activity dedicated to Space.
Although Sodern activity started in the neutron area, by designing neutron sources for the French deterrent force, it began to diversify into optical sensors and advanced spacecraft instrumentation in the late 1960s.
Nowadays, its activities cover several ranges of space instruments.
- Instruments for satellite attitude control: Earth and Solar sensors and stars trackers, equipping among others Spot,Helios,Eurostar satellites and M51 missile. The first Earth sensor was created in 1977 and boarded on Meteosat I.
...
Wikipedia