Lockheed-Martin design

This Lockheed-Martin design emphasizes simplicity and features a monolithic, 20-foot-wide (6 meters) primary mirror and rings of metal shields. The telescope would be launched into a highly elliptical orbit around the Sun. The elliptical orbit would take the telescope beyond Mars and almost to the inner portions of the asteroid belt. At this distance from the Sun, scattered sunlight and infrared light from dust in our solar system is 10 to 30 times dimmer than what is seen by orbiting spacecraft near Earth. The large deployable solar array is required to provide sufficient power for the spacecraft and communications when it is far