The LBT f/15 gregorian focal stations where designed to be fed by the two thin-shell adaptive secondary (AdSec) mirrors, but delivery of this cutting-edge technology was late.  To enable the LBT to proceed with the commissioning and early science operation of the LUCI1 and MODS1 facility spectrographs, OSU was tasks with designing, building, and delivering a conventional f/15 rigid secondary mirror.  The system was delivered to the LBT in April 2008 and was in operation first on the SX (left) side primary mirror, then moved to the DX (right) side primary after delivery of the SX AdSec.  After delivery and commissioning of the DX AdSec unit, the rigid secondary was held in reserve to be used when either AdSec was offline for repair so that the LBT could continue binocular science operations.

The borosilicate honeycomb mirror blank for the 0.9m secondary mirror was fabricated by HexTech in Tucson, figured by Thales/SESO in France, and coated by EMF Corp in Ithaca. OSU designed the support system and led the overall project from procurement to commissioning. The hexapod used to position the mirror was designed and built by ADS International in Italy.