The U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) latest Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite (GOES-N) was recently launched with Goodrich Corporation’s Solar X-ray Imager (SXI) telescope mirror assembly on board. GOES-N is the latest in a series of earth monitoring satellites. It provides continuous monitoring of both earth and space weather events.
Solar activity can interfere with space and ground-based communication systems by degrading the performance of navigation tools such as GPS and introducing radiation that can damage space-based electronics and impact the orbit of satellites. SXI technology provides early detection and characterization of solar disturbances, thereby allowing NOAA as well as the U.S. Air Force to issue space weather forecasts and alerts to satellite operators. Goodrich’s Electro-Optical Systems team was responsible for the design, fabrication and verification of five space-qualified telescope mirror assemblies for the SXI program. The SXI telescope has a wide field-of-view, providing high-resolution imagery over the entire solar disk including the important coronal region. The SXI telescope has super-smooth mirror surfaces fabricated using Goodrich processes originally developed for the Chandra x-ray telescope, allowing the SXI instrument to achieve high contrast imagery over the x-ray spectrum where sunspots, solar flares and coronal mass ejections can be observed.
Goodrich’s Electro-Optical Systems team, headquartered in Danbury, Conn., has a long history in the design and fabrication of highly complex x-ray telescope systems including the first space-based imaging x-ray telescope for the Einstein (HEAO-2) observatory and the mirrors for the world’s highest resolution, space-based, x-ray telescope, the Chandra x-ray observatory.
Goodrich Corporation, a Fortune 500 company, is a global supplier of systems and services to aerospace, defense and homeland security markets. With one of the most strategically diversified portfolios of products in the industry, Goodrich serves a global customer base with significant worldwide manufacturing and service facilities. For more information visit http://www.goodrich.com.
