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While improving the overall image quality, this
giant mirror also provides a 15-fold increase
in the surface area that gathers in light from
the stars, outpacing all telescopes built to date.
The European Extremely Large Telescope will drive
considerable progress in astronomy, especially
through its ability to directly acquire images
of exoplanets (outside the Solar System). It will
start operation early in the next decade pending
a final go-ahead for E-ELT construction from the
ESO Council.
The prototype mirrors for the E-ELT are produced
by Reosc, a Sagem entity in Saint-Pierre-du-Perray,
near Paris. This facility is unrivaled in Europe,
with its ability to polish large mirrors to a
surface accuracy of several nanometers, especially
the aspheric segments located off-axis on the
mirror.
Sagem develops and produces high-performance
optics for satellites,\ large telescopes, high-energy
lasers and the semiconductor industry. It made
the single-piece 8-meter (26 ft) mirrors for Europe’s
Very Large Telescope (VLT), and the international
Gemini telescope. It also made the 11-meter (36
ft) mirror for the Gran Telescopio de Canarias,
the mirrors for the Nirspec instrument on the
James Webb Space Telescope and the Gaia astronomy
satellites, as well as optics for Meteosat, Spot
and Helios satellites.
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