Nickel sandwich technology for high precision reflector antennas

Ultra high accuracy was achieved by Media Lario in the realization of large grazing incidence mirrors for the XMM telescope by electroformed nickel technology. The development of this technique also to the manufacturing of reflector antennas operating at centimeter and millimeter wavelength, has been carried out, achieving a surface accuracy of the order of the microns. The electroforming Ni technology, due to the high repeatability of the process which allows for the mass production with reduced recurring costs, is therefore to be considered as a cost effective approach for the realization of reflector panels for large ground station antennas.