<title>Large lightweight deployable telescopes with active surface correction</title>

Abstract

The future of space-based telescopes will inevitably incorporate large apertures made from lightweight, stable materials that deploy from small volumes and actively adjust for maximum efficiency. These types of telescopes are directly applicable toward imaging and non-imaging applications. Techniques to remove wavefront error via surface correction are currently being studied and are highly applicable towards deployable telescopes. Imaging telescopes require much more sophisticated surface correction and deployment than lower frequency non-imaging telescopes. The intent of this paper is to present some concepts of deployable structures and active surface correction that perhaps enables further development of these types of structures.