Sodern

Sodern is a French company based in Limeil-Brevannes near Paris, specialized in space instrumentation, optics and neutron analyzers, owned by ArianeGroup and the French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission. It develops instruments used on space exploration missions including NASA InSight, the Indian Mars Orbiter, ESA JUICE and NASA Europa Clipper at the moons of Jupiter, a Japanese mission to Venus, and NASA Dawn at Ceres, and it built the heart of the PHARAO atomic clock, engineered to deviate by no more than one second every 300 million years. Sodern is one of the world leaders in the development and production of star trackers, the instruments that let satellites determine their position in space, and it also produces neutron sources used in French national defense applications.