Low cost, high performance lightweight Aluminum mirror provides an alternative to glass ceramic, ceramic, and exotic metal mirrors. NASA funded several lightweight Aluminum mirror technology development efforts for future space and balloon-borne infrared telescope programs. As part of these efforts, subscale Al-SiC metal matrix composite, Aluminum-6061 and Aluminum-5083 mirrors, and additive manufactured AlSi10Mg mirrors were evaluated at room temperature to 20 degrees Kelvin for its optical performance. This paper will discuss objectives, material properties, fabrication, cryogenic testing infrastructure and instrumentation, thermal test results, modelling effort compared to empirical data, and lessons learned.
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