Achievements

Thales SESO is a prime supplier of  Large Optics for Space, Lasers, Astronomy, X-rays and Defense   We are the first European manufacturer of Lightweight Zerodur Mirrors for Space Earth Observation, the first French supplier of High Power Laser Optics for the French nuclear agency (CEA) Laser MegaJoule, among the...

  Bimorph state of the art: 100nrad and 0.5nm rms During the last year THALES SESO manufactured and delivered more than 10 integrated elliptical bimorphs for Brookhaven National Laboratory (USA), the Photon Factory (Japan), Diamond Light Source (UK). The mirror system have been designed, realized and set-up with slope errors...

KOMPSAT 3A Satellite was launched in March 25, 2015. The main optical instrument of the satellite was developed by Korea Aerospace Research Institute (KARI), with the same design as the optical instrument of Satellite Kompsat 3 launched in May 2012. The resolution of K3A instrument is 55 cm in panchromatic...

At the beginning of the summer, Thales SESO, based in Aix-en-Provence, celebrated its half-century of existence. Thales SESO began its life as an expert in the polishing of optical pieces for astronomy. Over 50 years, it has become a world leader in components and opto-mechanic systems, supplying most observation satellites,...

All optical components with their mechanical flexures (Mirrors M1, M2, M3 and M4) and focal plane separator were designed, manufactured and qualified by THALES SESO. PLEIADES is used for Defense, Civil security, Cartography, Risks & crisis management, Hydrology, renewables ressources, geology, Coastal management. PLEIADES is used for 60% of the...

Many new generation bimorph mirrors, manufactured by Thales-SESO, are currently in use. A recent article announces scientific advances, thanks to a close collaboration between Diamond Light Source (DLS) and Thales SESO...

In order to meet the increasing demand, Thales SESO reinforces its teams and expands its production and office areas with a brand new building. This will bring the number of employee from 75 to more than 100. This hiring will concern all the fields of activity:– Optical studies– Mechanical studies–...

The satellite, Sentinel-1A, which will orbit Earth’s Polar Regions, will transfer the data it collects via a laser communications terminal (LCT) of Tesat-Spacecom. Sentinel-1A was launched by the European Space Agency on 3 April 2014 from Europe’s Spaceport Kourou in French Guiana.Sentinel 1-A is the first satellite of the ESA...

GAIA is a space observatory of the ESA which is going to list approximately 1 billion (109) of components of the universe. Each will be approximately observed 70 times during 5 years of the telescope’s life. GAIA was successfully launched December 19th, 2013 and will reach its point of observation...

This article appeared in E-news of Photoniques “The French-speaking Review of the optical solutions”, which you can consult on the following link: http: // www.photoniques.com on Monday, April 28th, 2014 09:05 On March 21st, 2014, the Beamline PROXIMA 2 of the synchrotron SOLEIL celebrated its first year of opening to...

Thales SESO has been selected by the “Max Planck Institut für Plasmaphysik” for the design, production and installation of a set of 2 endoscopes which will be operated onto their Wendelstein W7-X Stellarator experiment (location in North Germany, near Greifswald). These equipments, also named “IRVIS endoscopes” (for InfraRed and VISible),...

The planet gear SARAL was successfully thrown on February 25th, 2013 since the space center of Satish Dhawan, in the South of India. It includes the laser reflector LRA realized by Thales SESO constituted by 9 corners of cube. The AltiKa project developed by the CNES is based on an...

Thales SESO delivered to the Dark Energy Survey consortium a set of impressive large lenses forming the wide field optical corrector of an astronomical observing facility located in Chile. The Dark Energy Survey project is a worldwide organization for fundamental research about the origin of the accelerating universe thank to...

Thales SESO from Aix to Provence (France), realized for KARI (South Korea) the manufacturing of all the mirrors of the telescopes of their earth observation satellite (5 mirrors, 2 flight models). In these activities was also included the mechanical design, the manufacturing and the mounting of the attachment flexures between...