Introduction
A great breadth of expertise is required to manufacture a space qualified, wide-field Michelson interferometer.
Polarizing, non-polarizing, cemented, optically contacted (epoxy free bonded), hexagonal, square, small (1mm), large (45mm), UV, visible, IR. Material selection, coating design, modeling of phase & polarization, mechanical design, process development, quality planning, glass shaping and polishing, optical contacting, cementing and finally testing, testing and testing. Of course that's what makes it so interesting and challenging to work on these projects.