An optical filter consisting of a multilayer spectral coating on a flexible membrane has been designed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory to be placed in front of the 200-inch Hale telescope on Mt. Palomar. The filter is intended to protect the telescope against solar radiant flux and limit solar heating of the interior of the telescope dome.
The Goddard Space Flight Center has proposed a way to align optical fibers by means of actuated microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) wedges. The wedges would be fabricated using gray-scale exposure of photoresist masks to create arbitrarily sloped features.
A semi-empirical method of optical characterization of thin contaminant films on surfaces of optical components has been conceived by the Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center. In this method, a theoretical model is correlated with measured spectral transmittances and VUV exposures of
spacecraft optics.