THE NASA JUPITER EUROPA ORBITER (JEO) CONCEPTUAL PAYLOAD CONTAINS A THERMAL INSTRUMENT WITH SIX DIFFERENT S…

Public award description

THE NASA JUPITER EUROPA ORBITER (JEO) CONCEPTUAL PAYLOAD CONTAINS A THERMAL INSTRUMENT WITH SIX DIFFERENT SPECTRAL BANDS RANGING FROM 8 M TO 100 M. THE THERMAL INSTRUMENT IS BASED ON MULTIPLE LINEAR ARRAYS OF THERMOPILE DETECTORS THAT ARE INTRINSICALLY RADIATION HARD; HOWEVER, THE THERMOPILE CMOS READOUT NEEDS TO BE HARDENED TO TOLERATE THE RADIATION SOURCES OF THE JEO MISSION. BLACK FOREST ENGINEERING (BFE) IS DEVELOPING A THERMOPILE READOUT TO TOLERATE THE JEO MISSION RADIATION SOURCES. ON PHASE II, BFE WILL TEST NEW CIRCUITRY FOR RADIATION HARDNESS, COMPLETE THE DESIGN OF A 1X128 THERMOPILE READOUT INTEGRATED CIRCUIT (ROIC) AND FABRICATE THE ROIC USING 180 NM CMOS TECHNOLOGY. THE PHASE II ROIC ALSO INCLUDES ON-CHIP 16-BIT ANALOG-TO-DIGITAL CONVERSION AND SERIAL DIGITAL OUTPUT FOR SYSTEM NOISE IMMUNITY. THE PHASE II ROIC WILL BE CHARACTERIZED TO MEET THE JEO THERMAL INSTRUMENT REQUIREMENT.