The requirement for lightweight mirrors for spaceborne application has often been met through the use of beryllium or low-expansion glass-like materials. The current availability of silicon carbide substrates and the development of suitable manufacturing and finishing process, however, provide an alternative material for such uses. This paper describes the manufacture of a series of lightweight silicon carbide scan mirrors intended for satellite installation. The finishing procedures employed and the test results obtained while establishing surface accuracies on the order of one millionth of an inch are presented and discussed.

Date Published: 6 December 1993
PDF: 7 pages
Proc. SPIE 2018, Passive Materials for Optical Elements II, (6 December 1993); doi: 10.1117/12.165234

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 2018:
Passive Materials for Optical Elements II
Gary W. Wilkerson, Editor(s)