Abstract
One of the pressing needs for the UV-Vis is a design to allow even larger mirrors than the JWST primary at an affordable cost. We report here the results of a NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts phase 1 study. Our project is called A Precise Extremely large Reflective Telescope Using Reconfigurable Elements (APERTURE). The idea is to deploy a continuous membrane-like mirror. The mirror figure will be corrected after deployment to bring it into better or equal lambda/20 deviations from the prescribed mirror shape. The basic concept is not new. What is new is to use a different approach from the classical piezoelectric-patch technology. Instead, our concept is based on a contiguous coating of a so called magnetic smart material (MSM). After deployment a magnetic write head will move on the non-reflecting side of the mirror and will generate a magnetic field that will produce a stress in the MSM that will correct the mirror deviations from the prescribed shape.
