The development of focusing optics for the hard-X-ray region

Grazing-incidence optics has revolutionized soft-X-ray astronomy yet the scientifically important hard-X-ray region has gone relatively unexplored at high sensitivity and fine angular scales. This situation is now changing with several flight-ready balloon-borne focusing telescopes and planned satellite-borne observatories. This review discusses some of the developments in mirror and focal plane technologies that are making these payloads possible.