[12.10] Lightweight X-ray Mirrors for the Constellation-X Mission

AAS 207th Meeting, 8-12 January 2006
Session 12 Con-X Instruments and Optics
Poster, Monday, 9:20am-7:00pm, January 9, 2006, Exhibit Hall

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[12.10] Lightweight X-ray Mirrors for the Constellation-X Mission

W. W. Zhang (NASA Goddard), D. A. Content (NASA Godard), J. P. Lehan (NASA Goddard and USRA), R. Petre, T. Saha (NASA Goddard), M. V. Gubarev (NASA Marshall and USRA), W. D. Jones, S. L. O'Dell (NASA Marshall), P. B. Reid (SAO)

The Constellation-X mission presents several technical challenges, one of which is the production of X-ray mirrors. These mirrors, when measured with a comprehensive metric combining mass, angular resolution, and production cost, go far beyond the state of the art of X-ray optics achieved by the Chandra, XMM/Newton, and Suzaku missions. To meet this challenge, we have mounted a rigorous and intense mirror development program in the past several years, and have overcome a number of technical difficulties. Now we are close to mastering a new technique that will meet, and likely exceed, the baseline mission requirements in terms of mass, angular resolution, and production cost. In this poster, we will describe in detail the mirror manufacture technique and report on the status and progress of this development program.

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