The prize Sciences is decreed to an engineer or a team having contributed to the development and the new realization of an instrument, a material or a technique essential to the fundamental scientific research. Rewarded work can be carried out in a company or a great research organization, within the framework or not of a great program.
The attribution of this prize touches, through the person in charge of the GEMO Gerard Beaudin, the activity led by the project manager Jean-Michel Krieg, and the persons in charge of systems Morvan Salez and Yan Delorme, on the ultra-sensitive submillimeter wave detectors (cooled at 2K), in technology of superconductors, for channel 1 of the heterodyne receiver with very high spectral resolution HIFI of Herschel (the far infrared astronomical observatory which will be launched in spring 2009 by ARIANE 5 and put in station at the Lagrange point L2 at 1,5 million km from Earth). These developments in submillimeter waves began about twenty years ago at the Paris Observatory under the impulse of Pierre Encrenaz, (one of the scientific leaders of Herschel at ESA), and of Gerard Beaudin, with the support of the CNES, the CNRS-INSU, the Paris Observatory and the MESR.
The space operational development of these devices corresponds to 5 - 6 years of intensive efforts of the project team of ten researchers - engineers and technicians in design, technologies, experimentation, quality check, including at LERMA : Jean-Michel Krieg, Yan Delorme, Morvan Salez, Frédéric Dauplay, Isabelle Peron, Benoit Lecomte, Alexandre Feret and André Deschamps, as well as Joseph Spatazza and Christophe Berthod of the technical Division of INSU.
The participation of Faouzi Boussaha (LERMA) and the Instrumental Pole of the Observatory (GEPI), the support of IRAM, as well as the exceptional work completed in industrial subcontractings (like the PME SAP near Toulouse), also contributed to the success of the project.
Thanks to the high degree of professionalism and creativity in new technologies (never yet used in space), the motivation of the whole team and the good coordination of activities, it was possible to reach the powerful results at the international level and the fame of the project team, the GEMO and beyond the LERMA and the Observatory.
