Beryllium Mirror Substrates for Space Telescopes

Materion Corporation (formerly Brush Engineered Materials) is the world’s leading producer of beryllium and beryllium-based precision materials and components for aerospace and space applications. Materion supplied the beryllium mirror substrates for all 18 primary mirror segments of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) — the largest space telescope ever deployed, launched December 2021. Beryllium was chosen because it is extremely stiff, lightweight, and dimensionally stable at cryogenic temperatures (JWST operates at -233°C / 40 K). Each hexagonal segment is 1.32 metres across and was precision-machined and gold-coated to form JWST’s 6.5-metre primary mirror. Materion also supplies beryllium structural components, optical benches, and thermal management materials for satellites, launch vehicles, and defense systems. The company’s advanced alloys division produces copper-beryllium and nickel-beryllium alloys used in satellite connectors, springs, and precision mechanisms requiring high conductivity and fatigue resistance.