Design of athermalized mounting structure for the sub-aperture primary mirror of a synthetic aperture telescope

The imaging quality of the synthetic aperture system is sensitive to the positioning accuracy of the sub-aperture primary mirror. A novel flexible mounting structure of bimetallic material is proposed for the athermalization of the sub-aperture primary mirror of the Fizeau Synthetic Aperture Telescope – which is composed of seven sub-aperture. The axial position accuracy of the sub-aperture primary mirror must be less than 5 µm under 10°C temperature rise to meet the requirements of the optical system. Firstly, a single mounting unit is analyzed theoretically, and the initial parameters are determined. The conceptual design of the mounting structure is carried out by using initial parameters. The orthogonal optimization algorithm and range analysis are used to optimize the structural parameters. The finite element model of the flexible mounting structure is established and the coupled thermal-mechanical simulation analysis is performed. Then the thermal sensitivity test of the sub-aperture primary mirror mounting structure was carried out. Under the effect of a temperature rise of 10°C, the axial displacement of the sub-aperture primary mirror mounting surface is less than 3 µm. Finally, the synthetic aperture system is assembled, and the optical test verifies that the synthetic aperture system has good imaging capabilities.

SPHERICAL PRIMARY MIRROR IN TELESCOPES WITH COMPLEX (MULTI-ELEMENT) OPTICAL DESIGNS

An optical design for telescope with spherical primary mirror, planoidal surface and two-lens corrector is discussed. The spherical mirror hasn aperture ratio 1/2.69. After reflection from the spherical mirror, the wave front falls on a planoidal surface and “forms” the reflected wave front from a virtual mirror with e 2 = 1.576. After passing the two-lens corrector, the light is collected in the focal plane. A dot diagram in the focal plane shows that all three-order aberrations are successfully corrected. The effective field of view is 2 degrees. The aperture ratio is 1/2.28.

Design and Optimization for Mounting Primary Mirror with Reduced Sensitivity to Temperature Change in an Aerial Optoelectronic Sensor

In order to improve the image quality of the aerial optoelectronic sensor over a wide range of temperature changes, high thermal adaptability of the primary mirror as the critical components is considered. Integrated optomechanical analysis and optimization for mounting primary mirrors are carried out. The mirror surface shape error caused by uniform temperature decrease was treated as the objective function, and the fundamental frequency of the mirror assembly and the surface shape error caused by gravity parallel or vertical to the optical axis are taken as the constraints. A detailed size optimization is conducted to optimize its dimension parameters. Sensitivities of the optical system performance with respect to the size parameters are further evaluated. The configuration of the primary mirror and the flexure are obtained. The simulated optimization results show that the size parameters differently affect the optical performance and which factors are the key. The mirror surface shape error under 30 °C uniform temperature decrease effectively decreased from 26.5 nm to 11.6 nm, despite the weight of the primary mirror assembly increases by 0.3 kg. Compared to the initial design, the value of the system’s modulation transfer function (0° field angle) is improved from 0.15 to 0.21. Namely, the optical performance of the camera under thermal load has been enhanced and thermal adaptability of the primary mirror has been obviously reinforced after optimization. Based on the optimized results, a prototype of the primary mirror assembly is manufactured and assembled. A ground thermal test was conducted to verify difference in imaging quality at room and low temperature, respectively. The image quality of the camera meets the requirements of the index despite degrading.

Simulation and analysis of co-phasing errors of the segmented primary mirror tiled by hexagonal segments in LOT

In this paper, co-phasing errors of a segmented primary mirror tiled by hexagonal segments are successfully calculated for the 12-meter Large aperture Optical/infrared Telescope (LOT). Co-phasing errors including out-of-plane errors are simulated separately and comprehensively based on several software simulation platforms. PAOLA simulation results show that the Strehl Ratio (SR) of LOT is larger than 0.8 when the RMS value of tip-tilt obeying a normal distribution is less than 0.018 arcsec, and the SR of LOT is larger than 0.8 when the RMS value of piston obeying a normal distribution is less than 40 nm. Besides, simulation results of Zemax show that the SR of LOT is larger than 0.8 when the RMS value of tip-tilt obeying a normal distribution is less than 0.02 arcsec, and the SR of LOT is larger than 0.8 when the RMS value of piston obeying a normal distribution is less than 40 nm. These simulation results successfully lay a solid foundation for LOT (especially the segmented primary mirror with active optics).