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On 25th May 2008, e2v Charge Couple Device (CCD) image sensors on board NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO), captured an image of NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander suspended from its parachute as the lander successfully arrived on Mars. This is the first time ever that a spacecraft has captured an image of another spacecraft landing on a planetary body.

MRO is currently on Mars gathering data on the planet's climate, composition, and surface features: with exceptional images captured by the probe's High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) instrument. e2v CCD image sensors are incorporated into HiRISE and it is this instrument which captured the images of the Phoenix Mars Lander. HiRISE normally points downwards, but the whole orbiter was tilted up in order to capture the image of the lander as it approached Mars.

The HiRISE FPA (Focal Plane Array) is populated with 14 high performance, back-illuminated, time delay (TDI) format, custom CCDs, with high spatial resolution and high signal to noise ratio. The binning functionality and four levels of TDI modes can be selected to optimise the performance of the FPA.

Each of the 14 CCD image sensors are linear TDI type with 2048 x 128 pixels. The pixel size is 12µmx12µm. The CCD sensor includes a two-phase serial readout structure with two output amplifiers located at the center of the readout register. The parallel CCD register incorporates a four-phase architecture. Charge capacity of the parallel register is 200 Ke.

A light shield is incorporated to ensure that incident photons strike only the photosensitive pixels on the sensor. A vertical injection structure is also included and may be used to pre-flush the entire photoactive area or pre-fill select portions only.

The CCD sensors operate in the back-illumination mode to yield high quantum efficiency over the 400 to 900nm wavelengh range.

Brian McAllister, General Manager of Space & Scientific Imaging at e2v said "We are very proud that e2v technology is accelerating discovery and enabling NASA to make space history by capturing this image."

SOURCE: e2v technologies