Fabricate and Assemble: An Alignment and Integration Method for Next Generation X-ray Telescopes

摘要

Future X-ray telescopes invariably require much higher angular resolutions and/or much larger effective areas than those already flown, and they will typically be designed and built with mirror segments, in contrast with the typical past X-ray telescope of complete shells. While the segmented approach has many advantages, it has one significant disadvantage: its complexity and difficulty associated with mirror segment alignment and integration. In this paper, we outline an approach, named "Fabricate and Assemble," that directly addresses this disadvantage. We will describe the necessary components, their fabrication, and their integration into a mirror assembly. The salient features of this approach include: (1) it fully realizes the optical performance potential of each mirror segment, (2) it leaves each mirror in a stress-free or minimally stressed state, resulting in a stress-free and therefore stable mirror assembly, (3) it assembles the mirror segment while it is supported so as to minimize or even eliminate the effect of gravity, and (4) it is highly amenable to being implemented as part of a sequential production line.