Design of lightweight large aperture mirrors and supporting structures

In order to satisfy the structure stability of a large rectangle mirror(800mm400mm), a novel flexible supporting structure of space camera primary mirror with super wide coverage was designed by Bipod principle in which three supporting points were adopted in backside of the mirror. The influence of the structure parameters on the mass and stiffness of the mirror was analyzed. The parameters which had significant effect were chosen as the design variables and the optimization design of mirror lightweight structure was carried out. The finite element analysis was conducted. The results indicate that the mirror structure has better mechanical adaptability, thermal adaptability and dynamical stiffness. The results of finite element analysis are consistent with the results of vibration test.