San Diego, CA--Trex Enterprises has received a NASA Select SBIR to design an affordable, ultrastable 1-m-aperture ultraviolet, optical, and infrared (UVOIR) telescope made using Trex's chemical-vapor-composite silicon carbide (CVC SiC). The athermal telescope is for the Balloon Exoplanet Nulling Interferometer (BENI) mission, which would loft the telescope to 135,000 feet to place it mostly above the earth's atmosphere.
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Trex is also set to demonstrate replicated CVC SiC substrates that have optical power; the substrates will be made using a new, polishable graphite mandrel material that allows the substrate to be released from the mandrel with a fine finish that needs no rough and fine grinding and is ready for lapping and polishing -- resulting in a cost that is lower by a factor of two and a schedule shortened by six months.
The company's CVC SiC substrate technology could also have use in future leading-edge UV/optical telescopes for finding exoplanets, and looking at the sun and cosmological objects. High-quality, low-cost SiC mirrors can also be used in other telescopes an optical systems for surveillance, reconnaissance, sensing (firefighting, pipeline monitoring, atmospheric and ocean monitoring), and communications.
Source: http://sbir.gsfc.nasa.gov/SBIR/abstracts/12/sbirselect/phase1/SBIR-12-1-S-E3.02-9771.html?solicitationId=SBIR_12_P1_S
For more info, see http://www.trexenterprises.com/