Author: Kevin Downing and Dave Harrison
Thursday, October 10, 2019
Materion Balzers OpticsFor over 40+ years, Materion Precision Optics (formerly Barr Associates) has been providing cutting edge multispectral arrays for high end government sponsored programs (Landsat, VIIRs, etc.). By working closely and collaborating with our customers over the years, we have developed solutions to improve large angle scatter (LAS), ghosting, R%, stray light management, and channel-to-channel cross talk. We have also implemented mechanical solutions for stress balancing, opaque masking, dimensional tolerance and focal length matching. Our broad knowledge and understanding of these challenges gives us the unique ability to mitigate and balance them against the economics of ever expanding commercial applications. “New Space” is no longer about exploration and science alone. It is clearly a material enterprise where profit is a key component of success. New methods, technologies and capabilities are required to meet those needs. Our familiarity with technical requirements combined with our in-depth grasp of today’s economics, allows us to reduce costs while maintaining high-end deliverables. Topics to be covered within this presentation include; how to leverage previous qualification testing, how to combine multiple customer requirements for cost sharing, how to minimize testing costs, and how to reduce complexity by scheduling and utilizing up front collaboration. In addition, there are references to anticipated advancements such as: expansion of our multispectral arrays beyond the VIS, NIR and SWIR and into the MW and LW; development of smaller stick widths; and improvement of ghosting through construction of parallelogram arrays.