SRI International Wins Gold in 2020 Edison Awards Aerospace Innovation Category

Описание: On August 12, 2018 NASA launched their Parker Solar Probe, the most ambitious robotic mission ever to be implemented by NASA. The mission: to observe the Sun in a closer proximity than ever before. In doing so, the field of space weather prediction has been revolutionized.

The Parker Solar Probe uses a Wide-Field Imager for Solar Probe Plus (WISPR) to gather the data during a mission. SRI International provided a vital technological contribution to the Wide-Field Imager for Solar Probe Plus (WISPR) for NASA’s Parker Solar Probe mission. The innovation was to design a CMOS imager for the extreme environment of space to take pictures of our solar system. Anyone with a smartphone most likely has a CMOS imager in the palm of their hand. SRI’s CMOS imager is different, having been developed with larger pixels to capture more light and to withstand the radiation environment of space.

SRI’s Active Pixel CMOS detectors have been developed to withstand the radiation of both space and the close proximity to the sun. This space-ready, hardened CMOS imager is able to withstand radiation exposure of greater than 100kRad. This technology provides the Parker Solar Probe with the robustness needed to optimally capture the closest images of the sun in human history.