Lynx is a concept under study for prioritization in the 2020 Astrophysics Decadal Survey. Providing orders of magnitude increase in sensitivity over Chandra, Lynx will examine the first black holes and their galaxies, map the large-scale structure and galactic halos, and shed new light on the environments of young stars and their planetary systems. In order to meet the Lynx science goals, the telescope consists of a high-angular resolution optical assembly complemented by an instrument suite that may include a High Definition X-ray Imager, X-ray Microcalorimeter and an X-ray Grating Spectrometer. The telescope is integrated onto the spacecraft to form a comprehensive observatory concept. Progress on the formulation of the Lynx telescope and observatory configuration is reported in this paper.
Advanced space telescopes which will eventually replace the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) will have 8-20 m diameter apertures. Primary mirrors (PM's) of these dimensions will fold to fit into the space launcher. By necessity, these mirrors will be extremely lightweight and flexible. The historical approaches to mirror designs, where the mirror is made as rigid as possible to maintain figure and to serve as the anchor for the entire telescope, can no longer be applied. New design concepts and verifications will depend entirely on analytical methods to predict optical performance. Integrated modeling of the structural, thermal, and optical performance of such mirrors is becoming the tool for advanced space mirror designs. This paper discusses some of the tasks and study results which are currently the basis for the design and integrated modeling studies ofthe Next Generation Space Telescope (NGST).
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