Air Force asked Perkin-Elmer to produce an all-optical 'masking' system for semiconductor fabrication. Perkin remained the chairman of the board until his death in 1969. Perkin remained as president and CEO until June 1961, when Robert Lewis, previously of Argus Camera and Sylvania Electric Products, took over these roles. The company was listed on the New York Stock Exchange on 13 December 1960. Įlmer died at age 83 in 1954, and the company began trading shares over the counter. Such systems remained a major part of the company's income, capped by the installation of laser retroreflectors on the Moon as part of the Apollo 11 mission. A significant advance was 1955's Transverse Panoramic Camera, which took images on 12 by 14 ft (3.7 by 4.3 m) wide frames that provided single-frame images from horizon to horizon from an aircraft flying at 40,000 ft altitude. They were a primary supplier of the optical systems used in many reconnaissance platforms, first in aircraft and high-altitude balloons, and then in reconnaissance satellites. Perkin-Elmer retained a strong presence in the military field through the 1960s and at the same time was significantly involved with OAO-3 a 36-inch Ultra Violet Space Telescope, Skylab and their major contribution to the Apollo program was the CO 2 sensor that saved the astronauts during the Apollo 13 failure. Navy awarding them the first 'E' for Excellence award in 1942. The opening of World War II led to significant expansion as the company produces optics for range finders, bombsights, and reconnaissance systems. A further move to Glenbrook in Connecticut in 1941 was quickly followed by another move to Norwalk, Connecticut, where the company remained until 2000.

They incorporated the growing firm on 13 December 1939. Initially, they worked from a small office in Manhattan, but soon opened a production facility in Jersey City. Perkin raised US$15,000 from his relatives, while Elmer added US$5,000, and the firm was initially set up as a partnership on 19 April 1937. The two struck up a friendship over their shared interest in astronomy, and eventually came up with the idea of starting a firm to produce precision optics. Charles Elmer ran a firm that supplied court reporters and was nearing retirement when he attended one of Perkin's lectures on astronomy being held at the Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences. Still interested in the sciences, he gave public lectures on various topics. Richard Perkin was attending the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn to study chemical engineering, but left after a year to try his hand on Wall Street.

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