Proceedings Article | 12 October 2004
Proc. SPIE. 5487, Optical, Infrared, and Millimeter Space Telescopes
KEYWORDS: Mirrors, Silicon carbide, Cryogenics, Monochromatic aberrations, Temperature metrology, Polishing, Manufacturing, Silicon, Optical testing, Carbon
The technology associated with the use of silicon carbide (SiC) for high-performance mirrors has matured significantly over the past 10-20 years. More recently, the material has been considered for cryogenic applications such as space-based infrared telescopes. In light of this, NASA has funded several technology development efforts involving SiC mirrors. As part of these efforts, three lightweight SiC mirrors have been optically tested at cryogenic temperatures within the X-Ray Calibration Facility (XRCF) at Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC). The three mirrors consisted of a 0.50 m diameter carbon fiber-reinforced SiC, or C/SiC, mirror from IABG in Germany, a 0.51 m diameter SiC mirror from Xinetics, Inc., and a 0.25 m diameter SiC mirror from POCO Graphite, Inc. The surface figure error was measured interferometrically from room temperature (~290 K) to ~30 K for each mirror. The radius-of-curvature (RoC) was also measured over this range for the IABG C/SiC & Xinetics SiC mirrors. This paper will describe the test goals, the test instrumentation, and the test results for these cryogenic tests.
