Nickel electroforming is a mature technology that has been refined over the last two decades to enable the fabrication of full-shell x-ray optics that have met the mass and angular resolution (i.e., 15-30 arc seconds) requirements for numerous flight programs. The next generation of high resolution, large collection area x-ray space telescopes, such as Lynx; however, will require optics that are beyond the current performance capability of traditional electroformed optics.
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