INO has a wide experience in the design and fabrication of different kinds of microbolometer focal plane arrays (FPAs). In particular, a 512x3 pixel microbolometer FPA has been selected as the sensor for the New Infrared Sensor Technology (NIRST) instrument, one of the payloads of the SACD/Aquarius mission. In order to make the absolute temperature measurements necessary for many infrared Earth observation applications, the microbolometer FPA must be integrated into a package offering a very stable thermal environment. The radiometric packaging technology developed at INO presents an innovative approach since it was conceived to be modular and adaptable for the packaging of different microbolometer FPAs and for different sets of assembly requirements without need for requalification of the assembly process. The development of the radiometric packaging technology has broadened the position of INO as a supplier of radiometric detector modules integrating FPAs of microbolometers inside a radiometric package capable of achieving the requirements of different space missions. This paper gives an overview of the design of INO’s radiometric package. Key performance parameters are also discussed and the test campaign conducted with the radiometric package is presented.

Date Published: 21 November 2017
PDF: 8 pages
Proc. SPIE 10566, International Conference on Space Optics — ICSO 2008, 105662V (21 November 2017); doi: 10.1117/12.2308275

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 10566:
International Conference on Space Optics — ICSO 2008
Josiane Costeraste; Errico Armandillo; Nikos Karafolas, Editor(s)