Composite materials for extremely large mirrors and optical structures

Building on our successful production of a world-class dimensionally stable composite optical bench structure for the SOLAR-B space telescope, Mitsubishi Electric is continuing to develop high performance lightweight composites for optical structures including mirrors. A key feature of composite materials is the ability to design the material to optimally meet the application requirements. Thus, various materials with individual characteristics are under development, each providing significant improvement over the state of the art.