The Constellation X-ray Mission is the next major x-ray- astronomy mission in the NASA Space Science road map. As a follow-on to the Chandra X-ray Observatory--nee, the Advanced X-ray Astrophysics Facility--Constellation X will provide high-throughput, high-resolution spectroscopy to probe the gravitational field, kinematics, temperature, density, composition and ionization state of cosmic sources. The Constellation-X observatory system comprises four separate satellites, each with one large Spectroscopy X-ray Telescope (SXT, with a pixelated microcalorimeter and a reflection-grating-CCD spectrometer) and three smaller Hard X-ray Telescopes (HXTs, with pixelated hard-x-ray detectors). Essential to the success of Constellation X is the development of large (1.6-m-diameter), lightweight optics for the SXT mirror assembly. With the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, teams led by NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center, by NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, and by Italy's Osservatorio Astronomico di Brera are currently developing competing mirror techniques for lightweight SXT optics, toward achieving the required system-level half-power diameter--better than 15 arcsec.
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