Goodrich has made major contributions to NASA's goal of establishing Great Observatories in space, which were collectively designed to conduct astronomical studies over many different wavelengths.

For the Chandra X-ray Observatory launched in July 1999, Goodrich designed, built, tested, and delivered four nested concentric, cylindrical mirror pairs. The mirrors are the largest and most precise ever built, having an equivalent area of approximately 18 square meters and final-polished to an extreme smoothness (2 to 3 angstroms).

On the Hubble Space Telescope, Goodrich designed, built, tested, and delivered the complete Optical Telescope Assembly and Fine Guidance System. These efforts included systems engineering, systems analysis, interface definition and control, hardware and software design and development, qualification, acceptance and spacecraft integration, launch and mission operations support.

For the Space Infrared Telescope Facility (SIRTF), Goodrich's design/analysis and manufacturing creativity with beryllium allowed NASA to go forward with completing the SIRTF Mission and selecting Goodrich optics as the flight Optical Telescope Assembly (OTA) configuration. Goodrich designed, fabricated and supported the testing of the primary mirror assembly, the secondary mirror assembly, and the metering tower for an 0.85-meter all-beryllium telescope.

Additional opportunities lie with the Next Generation Space Telescope, NASA's replacement for the Hubble scheduled to be launched in 2010, for which Goodrich is in competition to build the Optical Telescope Element (OTE).