Press Release Jan.05 - NASA's Deep Impact spacecraft launched from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida on Wed.Jan.12.05.

Photo courtesy of http://deepimpact.jpl.nasa.gov where you can also see details. The mission will travel to a comet and release an impactor creating a crater on the surface of the comet. Scientists believe the exposed materials may give clues to the formation of our solar system.

For the Deep Impact program, Mark Optics www.markoptics.com worked with Lightworks Optics http://www.lwoptics.com and Ball Aerospace http://www.ball.com/aerospace on the HRI and MRI mirror systems.

Mark Optics was responsible for shaping, lightweighting and generating the curves on the Primary and Secondary mirrors used in the systems. 

Mark Optics also polished the rear surfaces for stress relief, engraved alignment fiducials on them and were responsible for thermal cycling (CRYO) of the components for the Hi and Medium Resolution Instruments.

See the technical specifications and images at http://deepimpact.jpl.nasa.gov/tech/instruments.html#hri and http://deepimpact.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/index.html As a subcontractor of Lightworks Optics, Mark Optics was also responsible for quality documentation such a first article inspection reports, pre and post cryo CMM reports and certificates of conformance on these mirrors.

Mark Optics - Leading Fabricator of Precision Optics, Custom Optics & Plano Optics

Optical Wafers, Quartz and Glass Component Specialists.