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Jacob Larimore
Missouri University of Science and Technology
Abstract
The telescope on the International X-ray Observatory (IXO) comprises nearly 15 thousand thin glass mirror segments,
each of them is capable of reflecting board-band soft x-rays at grazing angles. These mirror segments form densely
packed, two-staged shells, in a Wolter type I optical design, in which each pair of the mirrors focus x-ray onto the focal
plane in two reflections. The requirement in angular resolution of the IXO telescope is 5 arc-seconds. This requirement
places severe challenges in forming precisely shaped mirror segments as well as in aligning and mounting these thin
mirrors, which are 200 to 400 mm in size and 0.4 mm in thickness. In this paper, we will describe an approach for
aligning and mounting the IXO mirror segments, in which no active adjustment is made to correct for any existing figure
errors. The approach comprises processes such as suspension of a mirror under gravity to minimize gravity distortion,
temporary bonding onto a strongback, alignment and transfer to a permanent structure and release of mirror from the
temporary mount. Experimental results and analysis in this development are reported.
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