I have a little black hole

"Boss, if these important parts are produced in our country, then the overall performance of our communication satellites and detection satellites will drop by 15%-20%! Even more than that, there is no way to meet the company's performance with such performance. Communication and detection needs!

It is impossible for the space telescope that the boss attaches more importance to using domestic parts to replace!Because if those low-performance parts are used, the entire space telescope can be considered as a waste!And the most important lens problem, I guess our domestic technology can't make it barely usable!I will give you an example boss, you will know.

Take Hubble Space Telescope, a space telescope that is about to be retired. Its lens is the main Hubble mirror polished by PerkinElmer of Tampere, Connecticut in May 1979.

The mirror and optical system of the telescope are the most critical parts, so there are strict specifications in the design.In general telescopes, the accuracy of the mirror after polishing is about one tenth of the wavelength of visible light, but because the scope of space telescope observation is from ultraviolet to near infrared.

So it requires ten times higher resolution than previous telescopes, and its mirrors are polished to an accuracy of one-twentieth the wavelength of visible light, which is about 30 nanometers.

PerkinElmer deliberately used an extremely complicated computer-controlled polishing machine to grind the mirror, but it had problems with the most cutting-edge technology; Kodak was commissioned to use the traditional polishing technology to make a spare mirror (the Kodak mirror is now Permanently preserved at the Smithsonian Institution).

In 1979, PerkinElmer began grinding lenses, using ultra-low expansion glass, in order to minimize the weight of the mirror, using a honeycomb lattice, only one inch each of the surface and the bottom surface is thick glass.

The polishing of the mirror continued from 1979 to May 1981. The progress of the polishing has fallen behind and exceeded the budget. At this time, the NASA report began to question PerkinElmer's management structure.

To save money, NASA stopped supporting lens production and extended the launch date to October 1984.The lenses were all completed at the end of 1981, and were coated with 75nm thick aluminum to enhance reflection and a 25nm thick magnesium fluoride protective layer.

Because the budget for the optical telescope portfolio continues to expand and progress is lagging behind, doubts about PerkinElmer's ability to follow up continue to exist.In response to what was described as "undecided and fickle daily reports," NASA extended the launch date to April 1985.

However, as PerkinElmer’s progress continued to increase by one month each season, the rate of deterioration deteriorated, and the time delay also reached that each working day was continuously lagging behind.NASA was forced to postpone the launch date, first to March 1986, and then to September 1986.At this time, the total cost of the entire plan was as high as US$ 1.175 billion.

A few weeks after the telescope was launched, the pictures returned showed serious problems with the optical system.Although the first image looks sharper than the ground-based telescope, the telescope obviously has not reached the best focus state, and the best image quality obtained is far lower than originally expected.

The image of the point source is diffused into a circle with a radius of more than one arc second, rather than the standard in the design guidelines: focus on the image of the point diffusion function with concentric circles within a diameter of 0.1 arc second.

The analysis of the defects of the pattern shows that the root cause of the problem is that the shape of the main mirror is wrong.The edge of the mirror surface is too flat, which is about 2.2 microns away from the required position, but this difference results in catastrophic and severe spherical aberration.The reflected light from the edge of the mirror surface cannot be focused on the same focal point as the reflected light in the center.

Although this problem was solved by technical means later, from this example, the boss must have seen the difficulty of manufacturing parts such as lenses in the space telescope!

Let’s talk about the lenses of the James Webb Space Telescope. The mass of the James Webb Space Telescope is about 6.2 tons, about half of the Hubble Space Telescope.The main mirror is made of beryllium, with a diameter of 6.5 meters, and the area is more than 5 times that of the Hubble Space Telescope.It can operate in an environment near absolute zero (equivalent to minus 273.15 degrees Celsius).

And the technology and time required to manufacture such high-performance lenses are also very long, so if our company develops such high-precision lenses, then our space telescope is estimated to have to wait a long time before going to heaven!

And our company has not entered this field at present. If you want to develop such a lens, you need to start from the beginning. You should not accept such a long wait for the boss?

What’s more, we are not only facing this problem. Although we have been studying other aspects of high-performance equipment, we are still some distance away from success, so we thought about purchasing these parts from Europe and the United States first, and then completing our Current construction of space telescopes and satellites.

As for the components and parts that we develop ourselves can be used in future space telescopes and various satellites, the advantage of this is that we don’t have to slow down the entire company’s space program because of the problems of the components!"Kong Yuxiao explained in detail.

Hearing Kong Yu's words, Lei Tiantang finally understood the reason why he came to him this time. It is really no wonder that those who participated in the space telescope and satellite project have considered this very well. Comprehensive, after all, they already have the action to develop these core parts.

It's just that the progress can't keep up with the company's space plan. You have to know that the most important engine problems of the rocket have been basically completed. After some tests, the rocket can be tested. At that time, if the satellite and the space telescope still have If the construction is not completed, then the rocket can't just launch something into space?

"Okay, you let them send me a detailed catalog of parts to be purchased, as well as their specific parameters and performance requirements. Let me solve the problems of these parts!

But I can only help you solve such things once or twice at most. After all, such a method cannot help the company's long-term development. You are also clear about this!

Therefore, the company's research and development work on these parts can increase investment!Businesses like lens, which we have not been involved in, will indeed be very slow from the beginning, but you can buy such a company, and then integrate its experience and R&D accumulation into the company. I believe that with the current strength of our company, we must There should be no problem in acquiring such a company!

You can also use this method to solve the initial experience accumulation process for other parts. After all, it is difficult from zero to one, but it is much simpler from one to ten!"Lei Tiantang said after thinking for a while.