Mersen at the Elysée Palace

Mersen was selected among more than 2,300 candidates to be part of the "Grande Exposition du Fabriqué en France" which took place at the Elysée Palace.
 

Mersen represented the department of Hautes-Pyrénées with the primary mirror of the GAIA satellite manufactured on its Mersen Boostec site located in Bazet. This site employs 65 people.

The mirror exhibited is a replica of the two main mirrors of the European astrophysics satellite GAIA. The structure and the mirrors of the instrument are made of silicon carbide: SiC Boostec®. Thanks to its exceptional physical and chemical properties, this technical ceramic allows the extreme stability required for the optical instrument. Its precision is such that it could identify a hair at 700km.

Mersen Boostec is the only company in the world that can manufacture such large and complex parts with this material. Orbiting 1.5 million km from Earth, GAIA has already provided scientists around the world with a catalog of more than 2 billion celestial objects in our galaxy.