Abstract

Further progress in astronomy requires large (~10m class) space telescopes in all wavelength bands, from IR to X-rays. The enabling of this progress requires optical fabrication technologies that not only can make mirrors that are orders of magnitude less massive than the present ones, but also orders of magnitude less expensive. In the past five years, we have been developing lightweight X-ray mirrors to meet mission requirements of the Constellation-X, which is NASA’s next major X-ray observatory scheduled for launch some time in the next decade. In this talk, I will describe in detail a glass forming, or slumping, technique that allows a high-fidelity copying of a mandrel’s figure while preserving the microroughness of the float glass surface. In particular, I will address the possibility of applying this technique to making extremely large optical telescopes.

© 2006 Optical Society of America