CESIC?-A NEW TECHNOLOGY FOR LIGHTWEIGHT AND COST EFFECTIVE SPACE INSTRUMENTS STRUCTURES AND MIRRORS

摘要

Alcatel Alenia Space and ECM have jointly developed a new ceramic material to produce lightweight, stiff, stable and cost effective structures and mirrors for space instrument the Cesic?. Its intrinsic properties, added to ample manufacturing capabilities allow to manufacture stiff & lightweight cost effective mirrors and structure for space instruments. Different scale 1 flight representative Cesic? optical structures have been manufactured and successfully tested under very strong dynamic environment and cryogenic condition down to 30K Cesic? is also envisaged for large and lightweight space telescopes mirrors, a large Cesic? 1 meter class mirror with an area mass of less than 25 Kg/m2 has been sized again launch loads and WFE performance and manufactured. Cesic? applicability for large focal plane have been demonstrated through different scale 1 breadboards. Based on these successful results, AlcatelAleniaSpace and ECM are now in position to propose for space this technology with new innovative concepts thanks to the Cesic? manufacturing capabilities. Cesic? has therefore been selected for the structure and mirrors parts of a flight instrument payload and the manufacturing of the flight hardware is already underway. An high temperature high gain lightweight antenna breadboard is also under manufacturing for Bepi colombo mission. Cesic? is therefore a good candidate for future challenging space instruments and is currently proposed for Japan and US space projects.