David Sheikh
CEO, Founder
ZeCoat Corporation
1506 West 3rd Street
Granite City, IL 62040
dsheikh@zecoat.com
info@zecoat.com
david.sheikh@gmail.com
www.zecoat.com
David Sheikh has developed a wide array of highly specialized optical, thermal, and space-resilient coatings for telescopes and planetary missions.
Telescope Mirror Coatings
Habitable Worlds Observatory (HWO) Project: He is currently leading the development of FUV broadband reflective coatings for a NASA D.19 Industrial Partnership program.
Kepler Space Telescope: He developed the protected silver coating for the primary mirror of NASA's Kepler mission, which was vital for maximizing light reflectivity to discover Earth-sized exoplanets.
Far-Ultraviolet (FUV) Broadband Coatings: Through ZeCoat, he designed an advanced aluminum-based physical vapor deposition coating. This technique achieved the over 90% reflectance reported in the FUV band @ Lyman-alpha.
UV-Enhanced Protected Silver: He engineered a specialized, exceptionally durable silver mirror coating that maintains high reflectivity from 350-nm through the long-wavelength infrared spectrum, designed to survive ground storage on Earth as well as space radiation environments. The coating was flown on the OCI instrument on NASA’s PACE mission.
Moon Mineralogy Mapper (M³): He created the protected silver coatings used on the M³ imaging spectrometer, a NASA instrument carried by India's Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft that helped confirm water molecules on the Moon.
Spacecraft Protection and Filtering Films
Mars InSight Seismometer Cover: In 2014, he designed the critical thermal control coating applied to the inner and outer shield of SEIS (the seismometer) on the Mars InSight Lander, protecting the sensitive instrument from intense Martian temperature swings and reducing solar glint.
NuSTAR Space Telescope: He developed x-ray transparent optics covers and solar rejection filters to block interfering sunlight while allowing high-energy X-rays to pass through safely.
NanoSail-D Spacecraft: He developed a highly reflective aluminum coating deposited directly onto ultra-thin, 2-micron polyimide film for NASA's early solar sail demonstrations.
Habitable Worlds Observatory (HWO) Project: He is currently leading the development of multi-layered thermal control films (low-emissivity and high-emissivity) on polymer membranes to insulate and protect next-generation deep-space observatories.
Starshade for Planet Hunting: He developed a durable, ultra-black coating technology that could significantly improve NASA’s ability to directly detect and study Earth-like exoplanets by suppressing unwanted reflected light off a starshade's edges and light-blocking surfaces.
ISIS High-altitude Airship: He developed a roll-to-roll coating process to apply silver to thin polyimide membranes to create the reflective surface on the outside of a high-altitude airship.
Active In-Space Depositions
Self-Coating Space Telescopes: Under recent NASA contracts, David Sheikh has developed a battery-powered aluminum deposition process. This technology is built to apply or refresh high-reflectance optical coatings autonomously while on orbit in zero gravity, utilizing the natural vacuum of space to prevent oxidation.
Recent News