Another two TROPICS radiometers were launched on the  26th May - details are here  - and the Youtube video here and are - to quote - the PI, Bill Blackwell ....."all four are working great!"  At  2 am  BST, Monday 8th May 2023,  the New Zealand launch of two TROPICS radiometers puts TK designed, made and tested antennas into orbit to observe hurricanes. Rocket Labs' Electron engine powers the initial part of the launch:   Credit:Rocket Labs Click here to watch the launch on YouTube - and a splendid Drone video here ....the 100mm cube tri-band antennas use a polarizing grid to combine co-aligned beams covering atmospheric rotation lines of water and oxygen: ...

A day late and a nervous wait for the spacecraft to start talking back to Earth, ESA's JUICE mission is finally on its way to the Galilean moons - including, SWI, the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research's Submm-Wave Radiometer TK had the privilege to build, for colleagues in the Institute of Applied Physics in Bern, the radiometric calibrationtarget (A), the free-standing mm-wave polarizer (B) and the 530-625 GHz corrugated antenna feed (C) for IAP's Quasi-Optical sub-system     The SWI can pick up the rotation based-emission of some simple molecules, enumerated below, might be venting from these moons - the latter are still undergoing tidal heating.  Measurements m...

Andrew Moseley, a second year apprentice at Thomas Keating Ltd, has received the Engineering Star Apprentice 2022 award from Crawley College. The award was given due to Andrew's hard work and quality of task parts that he produced in both milling and turning as part  of his Mechanical Engineering level 2 course work.  '' Andrew has already become an important member of the TK team.'' says Simon Duke , Toolroom Manager. ''He has shown a high degree of engineering understanding which can be seen in the high quality work that he produces.'' In his introduction, Instructor Mike Coles mentions his "Persistence" and his "Rising to a challenge" The Video can be seen here of Andrew Mo...

In August 2022 we delivered the third and final QON for the Microwave Sounder instrument (MWS). This is part of the ESA/EUMETSAT MetOp Second Generation series of weather satellites. Along with a set of spares this brings some seven years of work (nearly!) to a close. Huge thanks go to Dr Adam Woodcraft - the MWS QON long serving Project Manager - for delivering this project along with a host of colleagues from TK and our subcontractors. The QON (Quasi-Optical Network) is the heart of the MWS instrument, collecting radio signals from the atmosphere and routing it to the appropriate receivers (which thankfully are not our responsibility). Almost every component of the QON was manufactured in ...

TK has sucessfully moved to a new laboratory and realigned the HiPER 94 GHz high power Spectrometer Bridge that we supplied a decade ago to the Pacific Northwet National Lab - a US DoE facility - in Richland, WA. Thanks to PNNL colleagues Davd Hoyt and Eric Walter for their great support

Although it looks just like any undistinguished box arriving and leaving TK, this box contain the last of the three Quasi-Optical Networks design, built tested by TK for Eumetsat Metop-SG Microwave Sounder (MWS). A good six years work.....  Delivered to AIRBUS D&S in Portsmouth, it will form the center of the FM3 version of MWS. Around it are just a few of the people who helped build it:   Parts of the QON are gold plated, but is value is actually significantly higher than its total weight in gold.