Digital Camera Application in X - Ray Real Time Control of European Launcher ’ s Ariane 5 Booster Segments

X-Ray real time control of solid propellant booster segments for the Ariane 5 European launcher have been used since 1988. At the beginning of this application only analogue cameras where available and the required sensitivity needed the development of a customized camera. After 20 years of almost continuous usage the camera has had to be replaced due to the deterioration from X-Ray exposure extreme conditions. A new generation camera has been selected by considering two main requirements being actually possible by the state of art technology with respect the eighties: commercial available device and digital technology. Due to the extreme usage of the camera, tests have been performed in order to define if there was commercially available a such product or if again a customized camera was necessary for substitution of the old one. A high sensitivity EMCCD camera developed for low level emission with high spatial resolution and high frame rate has been considered how a potential substitute of the outdated and damaged camera. The comparison between results obtained from tests using the old analogue camera and the new digital camera shows that the new camera can replace the previous camera with all the advantages in terms of better performance coming from the digital sensor used and commercial availability of the device.