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M. Farber, M.P. Ulmer, M.E. Graham, S. Vaynman (Northwestern University), S. Varlese (Ball Aerospace & Tech. Corp.), D. Baker (Advanced Powder Solutions), J. Echt (Northwestern University)
The next generation of optical/IR telescopes will require large numbers of co-phased mirror segments. Therefore, some form of replication technology is desirable to reduce costs. Eletroforming has the advantage that it is a commercially developed technology for replication, and the technology has been widely used for making X-ray mirrors (e.g. XMM-Newton). Composite materials are appealing, since a great deal of development work has been done with composites as well. There are 3 areas that need to be addressed: replication with minimal stress so as to produce a high quality figure; attachment of support of the mirror segment so as to maintain the figure quality; thermal control requirements. Here we present a discussion of the requirements that lead us to select replication as the fabrication technology and the advantages of replication. We report on our first results of making a concave and flat mirrors.
This work was funded by a NASA Space Grant to Illinois, Ball Aerospace, Northwestern University, NASA Contract NAS1-03007, an AFOSR Contract F4620-C-0073, and a NASA Grant NAG5-03069.
If you would like more information about this abstract, please follow the link to http://www.astro.northwestern.edu/~ulmer. This link was provided by the author. When you follow it, you will leave the Web site for this meeting; to return, you should use the Back comand on your browser.
The author(s) of this abstract have provided an email address for comments about the abstract: m-farber@northwestern.edu
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Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, 35#5
© 2003. The American Astronomical Soceity.