North Thin Ply Technology (NTPT), makers of a wide range of weight saving repreg materials and automation solutions for the composite industry, is currently working as part of the French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission (CEA), for TALC (Thin Aperture Light Collector) space telescope project with more improved sensitivity and resolution.

The group also includes Multiplast, the French composite component specialists and a number of top academic institutions. An astronomer’s ability to detect smaller and fainter objects is ultimately limited by the size of a telescope’s reflector, and as existing technologies and launch vehicles have reached a limit with regards to reflector sizes, a new approach has been devised.

The team working on the TALC project have pioneered a revolutionary reflector design and an innovative new stacking technique to enable a massive 20 metre diameter annular reflector, constructed from sections of carbon fibre composite, to fit within the maximum dimensions of the existing launch rocket payload fairings.

NTPT will supply a low cure temperature, high Tg, Thin Ply Prepreg for the TALC project using pitch fibres and a cyanate ester resin system. The prepregs will be processed into honeycomb components with small cells for the reflector face supports and larger cells for the backing structure. The pitch based carbon fibres used in the NTPT materials provide exceptional stability (due to their low CTE) and heat conductivity in the finished composite components which are both critical parameters in the production of a telescope mirror that will function as designed in a space environment. (GK)