The primary mirror of the ARIEL mission: testing of a modified stress-release procedure for Al 6061 cryogenic opto-mechanical stability

This paper describes testing and evaluation of the Aluminum 6061-T651 stress release procedure that has been proposed for the ARIEL mission telescope mirrors to reduce opto-mechanical instabilities that may degrade optical performance in the operating cryogenic conditions. Preliminary results are presented, showing that the proposed treatment procedure has so far produced promising results.