With a growing number of stable structures and optics programs, SDC created a business area and additional manufacturing capability to develop this critical segment of the company. San Diego Composites' program managers, structural and thermal analysts, design engineers and technicians have extensive experience with the engineering and fabrication of dimensionally stable structures including optical benches, telescopes and mirrors. Additionally, our project engineers have design and analysis heritage on spacecraft bus structures and planetary landers/orbiters for missions to Mars and Mercury.

Our on-going work with Carbon-Carbon Mirrors and Telescope Structures continues to generate interest in the space and defense communities. More and more, SDC is showing this technology to be a viable replacement for expensive and risky technologies like beryllium and silicon carbide. At a recent conference, the SDC Carbon-Carbon mirror and telescope structure technology was identified as the most promising new technology presented at the optics oriented conference. We are proud of our developments in manufacturing and coatings to allow Carbon-Carbon to transition to a strong candidate for most any athermal and/or stiffness-driven design.