During the fabrication of an aspherical mirror, the inspection of the residual wavefront error is critical. In the program of a spaceborne telescope development, primary mirror is made of ZERODUR with clear aperture of 450 mm. The mass is 10 kg after lightweighting. Deformation of mirror due to gravity is expected; hence uniform supporting measured by load cells has been applied to reduce the gravity effect. Inspection has been taken to determine the residual wavefront error at the configuration of mirror face upwards. Correction polishing has been performed according to the measurement. However, after comparing with the data measured by bench test while the primary mirror is at a configuration of mirror face horizontal, deviations have been found for the two measurements. Optical system that is not able to meet the requirement is predicted according to the measured wavefront error by bench test. A target wavefront error of secondary mirror is therefore analyzed to correct that of primary mirror. Optical performance accordingly is presented.

Date Published: 8 September 2014
PDF: 6 pages
Proc. SPIE 9195, Optical System Alignment, Tolerancing, and Verification VIII, 91950M (8 September 2014); doi: 10.1117/12.2061733

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 9195:
Optical System Alignment, Tolerancing, and Verification VIII
José Sasián; Richard N. Youngworth, Editor(s)