We carried out various tests of 800-mm-diameter aperture, lightweight optics that consisted wholly of carbon fiber-reinforced SiC composite, called HB-Cesic. A cryogenic optical test was performed on the primary mirror to examine any CTE irregularity as a surface change, and only small deformations were observed. The primary mirror was assembled with a convex secondary mirror into an optical system and tested under vacuum at the 6-m-diameter radiometer space chamber at Tsukuba Space Center of JAXA, where we have prepared interferometric metrological facilities to establish techniques to test large optical systems in a horizontal light-axis configuration. The wavefront difference between under vacuum and under atmosphere was confirmed to be less than 0.1 λ at λ=633 nm, if we realigned the optical axis of the interferometer and flat mirror under vacuum. We also demonstrated a stitching interferometry using the Φ800-mm optics by rotating a mask wheel of subapertures in front of the optical reference flat. The wavefront stitched from eight individual measurements of Φ275-mm subapertures differs from the full-aperture measurement without the mask by about 0.1 λ nm RMS, which showed the technique could able to be applied to test large telescopes especially for infrared wavelength region.

Date Published: 20 November 2017
PDF: 7 pages
Proc. SPIE 10565, International Conference on Space Optics — ICSO 2010, 105652E (20 November 2017); doi: 10.1117/12.2309218

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 10565:
International Conference on Space Optics — ICSO 2010
Errico Armandillo; Bruno Cugny; Nikos Karafolas, Editor(s)