Programme
Camera Systems
For more than two decades, the Camera Systems programme has designed, developed, and delivered space‑qualified CCD and CMOS imaging systems for leading international space missions. This heritage has been established through the continuous development of cameras for missions including NASA’s STEREO, SDO, IRIS, and PUNCH; ESA’s Solar Orbiter; NOAA’s GOES‑16, ‑17, ‑18, and ‑19 satellites for meteorology and space weather monitoring; and ESA’s ExoMars Raman spectrometer. The programme applies new technologies and design innovations to future missions, enabling both curiosity‑driven space science and exploration and a deeper understanding of space weather and its impact on society.
Through provision of bespoke system design, advanced electronics engineering, and rigorous assembly, test, and qualification processes, we deliver high‑reliability camera systems for demanding applications, supporting government, academia, international partners, commercial primes, and OEMs.
Programme Aims
Our programme aims to deliver complete imaging systems by working closely with collaborators and customers to design and build reliable, mission‑ready solutions. We support these activities with ongoing research and development of electronics and sensor technologies with a particular strength in the development of custom-designed Application Specific Integrated Circuits (ASICs). This supports the scientific community through the provision of imaging capabilities that enable key research across space science and exploration, space weather resilience and earth observation domains.
Our work
Spanning the full lifecycle of camera system development, we combine multidisciplinary engineering, sustained R&D, and decades of mission heritage to deliver reliable imaging systems for operational and scientific missions with national and international partners.
Imaging systems design
We work with partners to define objectives and translate them into imaging requirements, delivering full system‑level camera design. Our expertise spans systems, electronics, FPGA, software, mechanical, and thermal engineering, supported by analysis capabilities including radiation, thermal, structural, and electronics worst case.
Production, manufacture and test
We support the manufacture and qualification of imaging systems and instrumentation. Our production teams deliver electronics assemblies, harnessing, and precision mechanical components to ECSS, IPC, and NASA standards, alongside procurement and storage. Testing is enabled through environmental, metrology, and GSE design and build capabilities.
Technology development
Our sustained heritage developing of CCD/CMOS electronics, FPGA systems and space‑qualified ASICs informs and strengthens new designs, allowing proven solutions to be evolved and applied across successive missions. Including ongoing next‑generation ASIC development delivering improved readout performance and efficiency.
Camera electronics hardware in Electronics Laboratory
Two Decades of ASIC Innovation
Since 1999, RAL Space teams have developed space‑qualified CCD camera ASICs – originally created to meet demanding mission requirements and withstand destructive effects such as Single Event Latch‑up (SEL) in the radiation environment of space. Their reliability and radiation tolerance laid the foundation for a generation of CCD‑based imaging systems that would fly on major NASA, ESA, NOAA and international missions.
