Development of X-ray Optics for the XEUS Mission
Publication date: 01 January 2004
Authors: Bavdaz, M., Lumb, D., Peacock, A., Beijersbergen, M., Kraft, S.
The Xeus mission is designed to explore the X-ray emission from objects in the Universe at high redshifts, and the success of the mission depends critically on the deployment of a 10 square metre class telescope system in a suitable orbit for science observations. The minimisation of the telescope mass and volume becomes of critical importance for such a large facility. We describe developments of novel light weight optics that enable a reduction in mass per unit area of more than an order of magnitude, compared with traditional replication optics technology. With such a large collection area, image confusion limits become a scientific driver as well, demanding arcsecond class resolution. We describe measurements that demonstrate the improvement in resolution that gives very high confidence that these requirements can be met. Some implementation details of the mission are briefly mentioned.
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