Towards the spatialization of ALPAO dms

Abstract

ALPAO designs and manufactures a wide range of deformable mirrors (DM) for various applications, from large telescopes through laser or microelectronics to vision science and microscopy. In this paper we will present the recent developments towards a space use of our DMs. Thanks to the wide span of characteristics of ALPAO DMs, many applications in space telescopes can be considered: correction of surface error of a large primary mirror, correction of high spatial frequency errors for high contrast imaging, simplification of instrument design with an active surface, etc. We present the ALPAO DM technology and the performances of DMs with large number of actuators. A focus will be made on the space application with the analysis of some correction cases and of the system reliability. The optimization of the DM’s characteristics is presented, as well as the roadmap towards space qualification.