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The first detection of radio waves from an astronomical object was in 1933 by Karl Jansky, when he reported radiation coming from the Milky Way at the Bell Telephone Laboratories. Very important discoveries have been observed using radio telescopes; from the microwave background radiation, one of the most important pieces of evidence for the Big Bang theory, to the latest image of a black hole captured by an international network of radio telescopes called the Event Horizon Telescope. Since astronomical radio sources (i.e. stars, nebulas and galaxies) are very far away, the radio waves that comes from them are very weak, requiring radio telescopes to have large reflective areas to collect enough radio energy to study them. Radio telescopes have typically large parabolic dish antennas, segmented in panels with different surface shape quality requirements proportional to the frequency of the radio signal observed. Different manufacturing methods have been used for microwave antennas. From flat panels made from a metallic mesh forming a gigantic spherical dish like the Arecibo Observarory, to the high precision electroformed panels done for the ALMA submillimetric telescopes. This doctoral dissertation project explores the electromagnetic radiation in the first chapter review, explaining the nature of light and particularly radio waves. It also review the radio telescopes optics, their main components and give some examples, including the ones visited by the author around the USA and Europe. Finally, the author explore different manufacturing methods commonly used in the production of radio reflector panels. On the second chapter, a method derived from Dr. Roger Angel glass slumping technology is explored to manufacture thermoformed reflector panels. The method, consisting of heating up a flat metallic sheet to reduce its yield strength and placing it into an adjustable mold to shape it into the required curvature. The third chapter propose a different method called El

The Coronagraphic Debris Exoplanet Exploring Payload (CDEEP) is a Small-Sat mission concept for high contrast imaging of circumstellar disks. CDEEP is designed to observe disks in scattered light at visible wavelengths at a raw contrast level of 10-7 per resolution element (10-8 with post processing). This exceptional sensitivity will allow the imaging of transport dominated debris disks, quantifying the albedo, composition, and morphology of these low-surface brightness disks. CDEEP combines an off-axis telescope, microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) deformable mirror, and a vector vortex coronagraph (VVC). This system will require rigorous testing and characterization in a space environment. We report on the CDEEP mission concept, and the status of the vacuum-compatible CDEEP prototype testbed currently under development at the University of Arizona, including design development and the results of simulations to estimate performance.

This dissertation explores optical systems with meter-scale mirrors intended for large laser beam projection for high speed space travel, solar energy generation, and radio astronomy. The size of these optics pose unique challenges for fabrication, alignment, and metrology. Additionally, these systems would use thousands of modules which limit the unit cost of the optics. Considering these challenges, this dissertation discusses the design, manufacturing, mounting, alignment, and metrology of these mirrors and their optical systems. Specifically it includes a system design for a laser beam projector using a super array of laser blocks and mirrors with discussions on the theory of aligning thousands of mirrors across kilometers of aperture. It also discusses two solar energy concentrators, one that splits the solar spectrum with a large dichroic mirror and another that uses a fly’s eye lens array to divide sunlight onto small, high efficiency photovoltaic cells. Included are details of the innovative manufacturing process of the 0.3 m curved lenslet array. Finally a new method is demonstrated for forming large aluminum reflectors for radio telescopes.