LIBA 2000+ on the Moon

The entire world knows that the Americans returned to the Moon with their IM-1 mission after an interval of fifty years. However, few people know that the Odysseus landing module was lit by five Czech lights.

The Czech company EcoGlass, a. s. supplied glass lenses made from the premium LIBA 2000+ glass from the PRECIOSA Traditional Czech Glass™ brand for the production of five lights on the landing module.

“We have five of these lights around the circumference of the Odysseus lander and they are there for one very simple reason: it’s the dark side of the Moon. And you cannot do much without a torch if you want to take a trip there,” said the American founder and boss of the Czech Aveo Engineering company, Christian Nielsen, whose company manufactured the lights, in an interview for WIRED.CZ. “In the case of the Czech lights on the Moon, this clearly does not involve a simple torch. It’s the best torch under the Sun, or rather in a shadow where the Sun doesn’t shine. They are high-performance LED lights, each of which has a light intensity of 100 thousand candles, with specially manufactured lenses and they have to be able to cope with a temperature change on the scale of plus-minus 500 degrees Celsius. Each of the five lights is remarkably light, but naturally also robust at the same time,“ added Nielsen in the interview.

LIBA 2000+ glass rods have excellent optical parameters and are used by leading manufacturers of glass optical components for a wide range of applications. The extraordinary parameters of the LIBA 2000+ glass means that they achieve excellent properties, crystal purity, flawless homogeneity, a high light throughput, brilliance and other superlatives. 

Source: WIRED.CZ