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The Advanced Mirror System Demonstrator (AMSD) program is focused
on developing manufacturing
approaches to significantly reduce the cost/schedule of making
multiple, identical mirror face-sheets for large, lightweight,
segmented telescopes. The basis of the approach is to invest
resources in nonrecurring tooling to reap recurring benefits for
these multiple mirror segments. This involves the generation on a
stable blocking body that is figured to a prescription that is
"transferred" to a thin meniscus optic face-sheet. We have
demonstrated this manufacturing process on AMSD and it is
directly applicable to Next Generation Space Telescope (NGST).
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The requirements of NGST call for a deployable primary mirror
design that is capable of figure correction after launch and
periodically throughout the mission. Our selected architecture is
based on a thin, light-weighted facesheet supported through an
array of actuators on a stiff, passive reaction structure
thermally matched to the facesheet. The facesheet is of fused
silica and the reaction structure is carbon graphite. Our optical
manufacturing approach is stressed mirror grinding and polishing,
which simplifies manufacturing of multiple copies of the same
aspheric facesheet.
We are currently assembling the components described above to
provide a final face-sheet figuring touch-up run prior to cryo
testing at the Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) vacuum test
chamber in Huntsville, Alabama.
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