Active Controlled Membrane Mirrors with Shape Memory

The increasing demand for large aperture imaging and high energy laser space-based systems has led to a technology push for light-weight, deployable primary mirrors. Space rated polymer materials with optical quality surface properties have beendeveloped. Coupling this material technology with emerging shape memory alloy (SMA) deposition processes offers a unique approach to manufacturing practical membrane mirrors for ultralight space based mirror requirements. The initial research has shown thefeasibility of using vacuum coating methods to integrally bond a thin layer of SMA to a membrane mirror without deleterious effects to the optical surface properties of the mirror. The SMA provides the energy for mirror deployment and initial global figurecontrol. This research will demonstrate this technology at the system level. The research also addresses integration of the membrane mirror with an active figure control system for fine tuning the global figure as needed for visible imaging applications.