Status Of The Development Of A Thin Foil High Throughput X-Ray Telescope For The Soviet Spectrum X-Gamma Mission

The first satellite in a planned series of Soviet X- and gamma ray satellites will be equipped with two high throughput telescopes to be delivered by the Danish Space Research Institute. The thin foil tech-nology was originally developed by P. Serlemitsos at Goddard Space Flight Center, U.S.A. Our modification of this design is optimized with respect to high energy throughput of the telescope. The mechanical design and the status of the surface preparation technologies are described. Various X-ray and optical test facilities for the measurement of surface roughness, "orange peel", and figure errors are described. An optical parallel beam has been established and results from the first mounted mirrors are discussed. The design goal is an angular resolution of 2 arcminutes (HEW). The first results seem to indicate that this is feasible and the possibility of going down to 1.5 arcminutes exits.