Space Solar Telescope (SST) is a space project for solar research, its main parameters are that total weight 2.0T, sun synchronous polar circular orbit, altitude of the orbit 730KM, 3 axis stabilized attitude system, power 1200W, telemetry of the downlink rate 30Mb/s, size 5*2*2 M3, mission life 3 years. It is expected it will be launched in 2001 or later. The main objective is structure and evolution of solar vector magnetic field with very high spatial resolution. The payloads are consisted of 6 instruments: Main optical telescope with 1-M diameter and diffraction limited resolution 0.1 arc second, EUV imaging telescope with a bundle of four telescopes and 0.5 arc second resolution, spectrometric optical coronagraph, wide band spectrometer, H-alpha and white light telescope and solar and interplanetary radiospectrometer. An assessment study between China and Germany is under operation.

Future space missions will have larger telescopes in order to look deeper into space while improvising on spatial resolution. The primary mirrors for these telescopes will be so large that using a monolithic mirror will be nearly impossible because of the difficulties associated with its fabrication, transportation, and installation on a launch vehicle. The feasibility of launching these huge mirrors is limited because of their small launch fairing diameter. The aerodynamic shape of the fairing requires a small diameter, but the height of the launch vehicle, which is available for designers to utilize, is larger than the fairing diameter. This paper presents the development of an axial deployment mechanism based on the screw jack principle. The mechanism was designed and developed, and a prototype was constructed in order to demonstrate a lab model.

We have designed a 30 cm cryogenic space infrared telescope for astronomical observation. The telescope is designed to observe in the wavelength range of 0.5~2.1 μm, when it is cooled down to 77 K. The result of the preliminary design of the support structure and support method of the mirror of a 30 cm cryogenic space infrared telescope is shown in this paper. As a Cassegrain prescription, the optical system of a 30 cm cryogenic space infrared telescope has a focal ratio of f/3.1 with a 300 mm primary mirror (M-1) and 113 mm secondary mirror (M-2). The material of the whole structure including mirrors is aluminum alloy (Al6061-T6). Flexures that can withstand random vibration were designed, and it was validated through opto-mechanical analysis that both primary and secondary mirrors, which are assembled in the support structure, meet the requirement of root mean square wavefront error <λ/8 for all gravity direction. Additionally, when the M-1 and flexures are assembled by bolts, the effect of thermal stress occurring from a stainless steel bolt when cooled and bolt torque on the M-1 was analyzed.