ESA is the prime contractor of the HERSCHEL mission. France contributes to HERSCHEL mission through its participation to the ESA mandatory program. CNES contribution to this mission consists in following through and finance all french participations developed by french laboratories.

Under ESA control, Thales Alenia Space is prime contractor of HERSCHEL and PLANCK missions. French industrie (Thales Alenia Space) is the satellite industrial architect:

platform supply,
satellite engineering,
satellite AIT,
launch campaign

HERSCHEL satellite is built by a consortium in which Astrium à Friedrichshafen, Germany, and Alenia à Turin, Italy, participate. The satellite has three instruments which are all built by consortiums. These instruments are respectively:

SPIRE which consortium is led by M. Griffin, RAL, Cardiff, Wales
PACS which consortium is led by A. Poglitsch, MPE, Garching, Germany
HIFI which consortium is led by Th. de Graauw, SRON, Groningen, Netherland

The french laboratories participations to the three instruments are:

Participation to SPIRE:

the CEA/DAPNIA develops the DRCU ;
the LAM develops the spectrometer FTS mechanism, the MCU electronic which drives the mechanism and optics of the spectrometer and the photometer.
 
Participation to PACS:

the CEA/SAp develops the Photometer Focal Plane Unit (PhFPU) and the BOLC which drives the PhFPU ;
the CEA/LETI develops the bolometers arrays that are on the focal plane of the PhFPU ;
the CEA/SBT develops the Cryo Cooler used by PACS and SPIRE instruments.
 
Participation to HIFI:

the LERMA/IRAM develops le mélangeur bande 1 de l'instrument;
The CESR develops the High Resolution Spectrometer (HRS);
the Bordeaux Observatory develops the IF module which is in the HRS.