Delivery Milestone

High-performance imaging sensors manufacturer e2v technologies plc of Essex, UK, has delivered more than 150 CCD imaging sensors for the European Space Agency’s galaxy mapping mission, Gaia. Anticipated to launch in 2012, Gaia will map the positions, parallaxes and proper motions of ~1 billion objects in the Milky Way to unprecedented accuracy, the company said. Its CCD91-72 imaging sensors are currently being integrated by the satellite prime contractor, EADS Astrium, to form a focal plane array that will pinpoint the position of stars with accuracy on the order of 10 to 300 μs.