Lynred completes space sensor contract for ESA’s Meteosat Third Generation Mission

24 Oct 2024

Delivery of final infrared detector flight models to Thales Alenia Space wraps up 20-year program.

The first MTG-S satellite will be launched during the summer of 2025.

Lynred, a developer infrared sensors for aerospace and defense, has announced the conclusion of its biggest space contract, worth “multi-millions of euros”, thus far: the delivery to Thales Alenia Space the last of 26 infrared detector flight models destined for the Meteosat Third Generation (MTG) mission. MTG is a European Space Agency program intended to enhance storm prediction and weather forecasting.

Operated by EUMETSAT (the European operational satellite agency for monitoring weather), the objective of the MTG mission is to guarantee the continuity of data for weather forecasting from geostationary orbit for the next two decades. The system is based on a series of two types of satellite: four MTG-Imagers (MTG-I) and two MTG-Sounders (MTG-S).

Lynred produced the flight models for all the satellites in the MTG program comprising the MTG-I satellites, an Earth spectral imaging instrument for multipurpose imagery and wind derivation by tracking clouds and water vapor features, and Earth atmosphere analysis (MTG-S) satellites.

Philippe Chorier, space business development manager at Lynred, commented, “We are delighted to have participated in the MTG program and successfully delivered on its 20-year commitment. It is gratifying to know that Lynred is playing a key role in enhancing the detection capabilities of the MTG satellite instruments and in fulfilling the program’s objectives of delivering meteorological forecasts.”

The company delivered the first flight models for the first MTG-I satellite in 2018. Since then, the company has supplied a total of 26 flight models for the different MTG-I and MTG-S satellites.

IR imaging achievements from SWIR to VLWIR

Over the past four decades, Lynred has developed and delivered IR detectors for a variety of space programs and seen them successfully deployed in missions. Key to its space-grade IR detectors is the company’s ability to leverage the inherent quality of its mercury cadmium telluride (MCT) technology and hybridization process, as well as harness its years of experience in designing IR detectors.

Lynred has overcome numerous challenges in developing the IR detectors for these MTG satellites: notably, excelling in their performance in signal to noise ratio, linearity, operability, spectral response accuracy and modulation transfer function across the electromagnetic spectrum. Other achievements include the operation of IR detectors in the VLWIR spectral range up to 15 µm with low dark current and ultimate detector operability at nominal system operating temperature.

In December 2022, ESA launched the first MTG-I satellite. The first MTG-S satellite will be launched during the summer of 2025. The second MTG-I satellite is scheduled for summer 2026, to complete the MTG in-flight full operational configuration. Following that, two other MTG-I satellites and another MTG-S satellite will be launched. These successive launches will enable the MTG program to fulfill its 20-year operational requirement into the early 2040s and provide data for meteorological forecasting.