Sodern

Sodern is a French company based in Limeil-Brévannes, near Paris in Ile-de-France, specialized in space instrumentation, optics and neutron analyzers.

It has developed high-tech scientific instruments including the heart of the PHARAO atomic clock, which should deviate by no more than one second every 300 million years, and will verify the effects predicted by the theory of general relativity.

Sodern is the world leader in the development and production of star trackers, instruments that allow satellites to position themselves in space, and neutron tubes.

Sodern was created in 1962 in the Philips' Laboratory of Electronics and Applied Physics (LEP) to launch a first generation of external neutron sources.

[1] 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.

Sodern created a high-precision system for measuring the spacecraft's attitude (orientation) and for fine-tuning its inertial reference.

[13] - Unique scientific instruments created on demand and integrated aboard satellites, space stations and space vehicles, such as PHARAO atomic clock[14] (developed from the work of the Nobel Laureate Claude Cohen-Tannoudji), critical liquids on DECLIC orbit study instruments,[15] some of the main components of the camera seeking for exoplanets aboard COROT satellite,[16] etc.

[25] In the late 60s, several projects in optical instrumentation have been materialized, such as the strips,[26] bands incorporating all the data exchanged during the operations of air traffic control, as well as the prototype of a mini-camera for the French hospital Val-de-Grâce, detecting gamma and beta rays, to facilitate complete removal of cancerous tumours.

During the 1980s, Sodern designed the focal plans and the optics for the Meris[27] instrument of the European Space Agency satellite Envisat, provided the cameras for the programs Iasi[28] (CNES) and CALIPSO[29] (CNES/NASA), and the dioptric objective of the Corot[30] instrument, which doesn't observe the Earth but looks into Space searching for exoplanets or studying the seismic activity of the stars.

It's also used for in situ measurements in mining and oil logging, for the control of raw materials in metallurgy, for the detection of explosives and in neutron radiography.

[36] The principle of material analysis by neutron interrogation was then extended for a vast range of applications: coal, ores (copper, nickel, bauxite, iron), scrap and waste.

They make the detection of explosive and hazardous materials (toxic chemicals products), as illegal ones, possible in abandoned luggage and parcels, from a distance.

[42] The main shareholder (90%) has been the European company ArianeGroup, the remaining 10% being held by the French Atomic Energy Commission CEA.