Van Speybroeck was the telescope scientist for NASA's Chandra orbiting X-ray Observatory and led the team that designed the mirrors for the observatory.
His mirrors are considered the most precise ever made, brilliant to within a few atoms' tolerance.
Since its launch by the space shuttle Columbia in July 1999, Chandra has made some of the most spectacular x-ray images of nearby and remote celestial bodies, including comets, exploding stars, gas jets emitted from black holes and powerful quasar stars more than 10 billion light years from earth.
Harvey Tananbaul, director of the Chandra X-ray Ceter at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Massachusetts, called van Speybroeck "one of the master mirror designers of our time.
"His contributions were essential to the tremendous success of the Chandra mission," he added.
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