Carbon Fiber Reinforced Polymer (CFRP) Optics Quality Assessment for Lightweight Deployable Optics

The Naval Research Laboratory and Composite Mirror Applications (CMA) have been working together for several years on the development of Carbon Fiber Reinforced Polymer (CFRP) optics and telescopes. We have documented the potential advantages of this technology in several other publications, including structural, thermal and weight advantages over traditional steel and glass optical systems. In this paper we present results of a battery of optical tests done on various CFRP replicated mirrors. Our goal is to demonstrate not only the optical quality of such mirrors but also their reproducibility and stability. We show test results on a sample of four mirrors. We performed extensive optical tests and also stability and repeatability tests. These tests are geared towards proving the use of this technology for a variety of optical applications including use in our CFRP telescopes.