Abstract

After launch it became readily apparent that there were large unexplained aberrations present in the Hubble Space Telescope. Phase Retrieval was the method used to determine that the source of error was spherical aberration. Phase retrieval was used to measure the magnitude of the spherical aberration from on-orbit flight data and to help determine the description for the corrective optics of next generation instruments. To date this is the first time that phase retrieval has been used on orbit.

© 1991 Optical Society of America