<title>Behavior of Sofradir detector dewar assembly under operational conditions</title>

Sofradir has built an infrared detector dewar assembly (DDA) capable of operating under various environmental conditions corresponding to various applications. In this paper it is shown that Sofradir DDA retain their performance for FLIR applications (ground vehicle, helicopter, or aircraft) as well as seeker applications. In particular, Sofradir DDAs permit the user to meet or to exceed the majority of environmental conditions defined in the US military standards such as MIL STD 81OD. Moreover, it has been shown from studies carried out at Sofradir that for components in production such as the 288 X 4 one, the reliability, thermal cycling, and operating and storage conditions are acceptable for this generation of components. Indeed, for instance, it has been demonstrated by test that the MTTF for standard operating conditions can be higher than 15,000 hours for the 288 X 4 focal plane array.