Correction of an active space telescope mirror using a deformable mirror in a woofer-tweeter configuration

Abstract

Abstract. The Naval Postgraduate School’s segmented mirror telescope (SMT) was developed using prototype silicon carbide active hybrid mirror technology to demonstrate lower cost and rapid manufacture of primary mirror segments for a space telescope. The developmental mirror segments used too few actuators limiting the ability to adequately correct the surface figure error. To address the unintended shortfall of the developmental mirrors, a deformable mirror is added to the SMT and control techniques are developed. The control techniques are similar to woofer-tweeter adaptive optics, where the SMT segment represents the woofer and the deformable mirror represents the tweeter. The optical design of an SMT woofer-tweeter system is presented, and the impacts of field angle magnification on the placement and size of the deformable mirror are analyzed. A space telescope woofer-tweeter wavefront control technique is proposed using a global influence matrix and closed-loop constrained minimization controller. The control technique simultaneously manipulates the woofer and tweeter mirrors. Simulation and experimental results demonstrate a significant improvement in wavefront error of the primary mirror and the control technique shows significant wavefront error improvement compared to sequentially controlling the woofer and tweeter mirrors.