In 2017, the European Southern Observatory (ESO) awarded a contract for the Polishing, integration and final figuring of the Segment Assemblies of the primary mirror (M1) for the Extremely Large Telescope (ELT) to Safran Reosc. Since then, the design and commissioning of a production unit dedicated to ELT M1 has been accomplished and the plant has been producing many mirrors since spring 2022. We will introduce the smart factory, its processes and their automation that enabled reaching the current throughput of one mirror per day. We will then present the status of the project, some lessons learned and highlight the successes that have been achieved so far.
In 2017, the European Southern Observatory (ESO) awarded a contract for the Polishing, integration and final figuring of the Segment Assemblies of the primary mirror (M1) for the Extremely Large Telescope (ELT) to Safran Reosc. Since then, the design and commissioning of a production unit dedicated for ELT M1 has been accomplished and the plant have been producing many mirrors since spring 2022. We present the status of the project, some lessons learned and highlight the successes that have been achieved so far.
The European Southern Observatory (ESO) awarded Safran Reosc with the contracts for the manufacturing of the main optics for the Extremely Large Telescope (ELT) : in 2015 for the twelve ELT M4 Zerodur shells, in 2016 for the ELT M2 4.25-m diameter Zerodur convex mirror, in 2017 for the ELT M3 4-m diameter Zerodur concave mirror, and in 2019 for the ELT M5 2.7-m diameter Silicon Carbide flat mirror. We present for each of these optics their key requirements and challenges. The ELT M4 shells are thin glass sheets in Zerodur of 1.95 mm thickness with strong requirements on thickness uniformity lower than 15 μm and on surface deformation lower than 14 nm RMS. The ELT M2 and ELT M3 mirrors are large Zerodur mirrors of class 4-meter diameter with strong requirements on bonding and surface deformation, requiring dedicated WFE test benches. We present the main parameters to achieve and make an overview of their test benches developed in Safran Reosc facility. The ELT M5 mirror is a large piece of Silicon Carbide of dimension 2.7m x 2.2m that presents high challenges for its substrate manufacturing and surface deformation. We detail its main requirements and the test bench specially developed for this mirror. Finally, we summarize for each of these optics the main steps and results achieved, and the current progress status.
Green light for the construction of the 39-m aperture giant Extremely Large Telescope (ELT) was given by the European Southern Observatory (ESO) council on Dec 4th, 2014. Procurement of the key elements, especially the optics, was immediately initiated by ESO team. Up today, Safran Reosc was awarded all the key optical polishing and testing contracts with:
2015-07: contract for the Adaptive Optics M4 mirror thin glass petals,
2016-07: contract for the 4-m M2 convex mirror,
2017-02: contract for the 4-m M3 mirror.
2017-05: contract for polishing and intergation of the 931 1.45-m hexagonal segments for the giant 39-m M1 mirror assembly
This paper is dedicated to highlighting the various challenges linked to these various optical fabrication projects and reporting about the progress of our work so far.
Green light for the construction of the 39-m aperture Extremely Large Telescope (ELT) was given by the Council of the European Southern Observatory (ESO) on Dec 4th, 2014. Procurement of the key elements, especially the optics, the dome and structure and the glass substrates, was soon after initiated by ESO team. Safran Reosc is proud to have been awarded all the key optical polishing and testing contracts with:
2015-07: the contract for thin glass petals of the Adaptive Optics M4 mirror unit,
2016-07: the contract for polishing the 4-m secondary convex mirror M2,
2017-02: the contract for polishing of the 4-m tertiary mirror M3,
2017-05: the contract for polishing and integration of the 931 1.45-m hexagonal segments constituting the giant 39-m primary mirror assembly M1.
This paper reports Safran Reosc’s work progresses along these four contracts with their various challenges and more specifically those related to the mass production of the M1 segments.
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