Responder fast steering mirror

Raytheon Space and Airborne Systems (SAS) has designed, built and tested a 3.3-inch diameter fast steering mirror (FSM) for space application. This 2-axis FSM operates over a large angle (over 10 degree range), has a very high servo bandwidth (over 3.3 Khz closed loop bandwidth), has nanoradian-class noise, and is designed to support microradian class line of sight accuracy. The FSM maintains excellent performance over large temperature ranges (which includes wave front error) and has very high reliability with the help of fully redundant angle sensors and actuator circuits. The FSM is capable of achieving all its design requirements while also being reaction-compensated. The reaction compensation is achieved passively and does not need a separate control loop. The FSM has undergone various environmental testing which include exported forces and torques and thermal vacuum testing that support the FSM design claims. This paper presents the mechanical design and test results of the mechanism which satisfies the rigorous vacuum and space application requirements.