Space and Astronomy

Boostec^® SiC provides an ideal solution for instruments requiring exceptional thermomechanical stability.

Using Boostec^® technology, whole instruments can be made in SiC: structure and detector supports as well as the mirrors themselves.

The optical face of the mirrors can receive a SiC CVD coating to produce a completely non-porous surface, for a flawless polishable finish.

Mersen Boostec designs and manufactures:

• monolithic parts up to:
  • 1.30 m in diameter for circular parts
  • 1.65 x 1.30 x 0.60 m for rectangular parts
• SiC brazed assemblies up to:
  • 3.5 m in diameter.

Mersen Boostec's know-how also extends to structural bonding and bolting techniques for assembling SiC parts together or with parts made of other materials.

Mersen Boostec is involved in several public and private programs in space optics, ground telescopes and large instruments:

• ELT: Combining high specific stiffness and high thermal stability, the Boostec^® SiC material has been selected for manufacturing two very large and challenging parts of the ESO Extremely Large Telescope (ELT). These are the highly stable Reference Body of its M4 adaptive optic and also its fast tip/ tilt M5 mirror
• Herschel: space telescope launched in 2009 with a primary mirror measuring 3.5 m in diameter (the largest in space), made up of 12 sintered silicon carbide segments assembled by brazing.
• Gaia: ESA global astrometry mission (European Space Agency), launched in December 2013.
• Sentinel-2: ESA optical imagery mission: 4 satellites equipped with high resolution multispectral instrument