Design and test of a flexure mount for lightweight mirror

The 470mm lightweight primary mirror of a space telescope is made of ULE, and supported on a titanium hexapod. The hexapod consists of six bond pads, six titanium struts with flexures and three support parts. The hexapod provides a quasi-kinematic mount for the lightweight mirror, and the flexures are used to isolate optical elements from the mechanical and thermal deformations of the support structure, then the surface figure distortion of the mirror is minimized. In this paper, the finite element method is used to analyze the static and dynamic characteristics of the mirror assembly. Then, six pads are bonded to the mirror and the support hexapod is assembly. The vertical optical test of the primary mirror assembly is implemented. Vibration test of the mirror assembly is performed, and the test results are consistent with the results of the finite element analysis. © 2019 SPIE.