Progress in ultra-lightweight glass ceramic space optics

Over more than four decades ago Safran Reosc was a pioneer in the development of lightweight glass ceramic space optics in Europe with FAUST, SPOT and METEOSAT projects for CNES. Since then we developed our best efforts to improve our skill and capabilities on the subject through many projects. We still hold a world record with the SOFIA primary mirror being the world largest machined lightweight glass ceramic mirror. Despite our strong orientation toward the highly demanded Silicon Carbide material for space optical instrumentation Safran Reosc is still conducting high performance optical activities with glass ceramic material. Therefore, after recalling our solid heritage on the subject, we want to share with the community our recent developments in glassy ultralightweight optics with MERLIN, Kompsat-7 and thin shells for AO. Other aspects of our progresses lie 1) in the improvements in term of schedule because the space industry is more and more schedule driven and 2) the evolution toward the use of fast and freeform optics enabling more capable and more compact, thus less heavy, and therefore lower total mission costs.