Ball Aerospace Ships Survey Telescope Lens Assembly to Lawrence Livermore Nat’l Lab

Ball Aerospace has delivered a camera lens assembly to the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California for installation into a ground telescope intended to observe astronomical phenomena and provide a visualization of the universe.

It constructed the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope’s lens assembly with Arizona Optical Systems ahead of the telescope’s installation onto an 8,800-foot Chilean mountain ridge, Ball Aerospace said Thursday.

The assembly is comprised of two refractive lenses and a structure that connects them with the LSST camera, which is designed to capture an image of the night sky to help researchers observe asteroids, the Milky Way and other elements such as dark matter and energy.

“As one of the largest digital cameras to be constructed for a ground telescope, the design, fabrication, mounting and testing of the 1.6-meter diameter L1 and 1.2-meter L2 lenses was a very challenging and rewarding effort that involved significant collaboration and teamwork over a five-year period,” said Makenzie Lystrup, vice president and general manager for civil space at Ball Aerospace.

Ball Aerospace has designed and built optical systems for a range of space telescopes, including NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope.