HERSCHEL: LARGEST SiC SPACE MIRROR IN THE WORLD BRAZED WITH MPA INDUSTRIE TECHNOLOGY LAUCHED IN 2009
2010-02-02
Engaged with Boostec in HERSCHEL Mission, MPA Industrie designed and built the vacuum unit to perform the mirror high temperature assembling. The company bring its know-how in large silicon carbide CVD reactor to reach the acceptance criteria (vacuum, temperature uniformity in a large volume) to fabricate this unique compound. This vacuum furnace (built as a CVD reactor) has been specially designed for this project because such equipment didn't exist in the world. The twelve segments were assembled into one single part, through a high temperature vacuum brazing that was carried with success on November 17th 2003.This mirror of 3m50 of diameter is made for the European Space Agency’s HERSCHEL satellite. The HERSCHEL mission will solve the mystery of how stars and galaxies were born. The satellite of 7m high and over 3 tons will be launched in 2009 and perform a 3-years observation in an orbit of 1.5 million kilometers long from Earth.
Large SiC CVD reactors are presently built for new space mirror applications.
