Sodern to produce star trackers in Colorado

WASHINGTON — Sodern, a French manufacturer of star trackers and cameras, is expanding into the United States with a new production facility in Colorado.

Sodern, a subsidiary of ArianeGroup, announced Jan. 14 the creation of Sodern America, a new U.S.-based entity that will produce star trackers domestically for American customers.

Sodern America will be led by Tiphaine Louradour, formerly an executive at United Launch Alliance, president of International Launch Services, which marketed the Proton rocket, and chief executive of Spaceflight, a launch services provider acquired by Firefly Aerospace in 2023.

The company plans to establish a production facility in Englewood, a Denver suburb. The 14,000-square-foot facility will manufacture the company’s Auriga star tracker and conduct testing of its higher-performance Hydra star tracker. Star trackers produced there will be exclusively for U.S. customers.

Vincent Dedieu, chief executive of Sodern, said at a briefing that the U.S. market currently accounts for about one-third of the company’s space-related revenue. He estimated that roughly one-quarter of all satellites worldwide, excluding SpaceX’s Starlink constellation, use star trackers built by Sodern. The largest customer for Auriga was the initial OneWeb constellation, which used more than 1,200 of the star trackers.

“It’s already an important market for us,” Dedieu said of the United States. “It was important for us to show our customers that we would really invest in the capabilities we offer our U.S. customers with our company there.”

“We want to have the opportunity to continue growing the market and better understand and anticipate its evolution,” Louradour added.

Company executives said tariffs did not factor into the decision to establish Sodern America. Dedieu said he had considered a U.S. subsidiary as early as 2020, believing the company needed a presence in the United States to better serve customers there. “This is really the mindset that pushed the decision,” he said.

Sodern first announced a partnership with Redwire in 2022 in which Redwire would produce a star tracker based on Hydra in the United States. “It was the first move toward this decision to say that we have to go full scale with Sodern America,” Dedieu said.

Having a domestic source for star trackers will benefit U.S. customers, he added, as it will eliminate the need in some cases for them to seek waivers to acquire a non-U.S. component.

The Auriga star trackers built in Colorado will be functionally identical to those currently produced at Sodern’s factory near Paris. “It’s the same hardware, same process to put it together,” Louradour said.

She said 2026 will be a “transition year” for Sodern America as the Colorado facility is established, with production of Auriga star trackers expected to begin in the fourth quarter and gradually ramp up thereafter.