Experimental testing of space optics is a mandatory process for investigating the optical performances in conditions close to reality. With the optical requirement level increasing over years, these experimental tests are increasingly expensive and time-consuming. A modeling tool would therefore be an elegant solution to avoid these drawbacks. For this purpose, a multiphysics approach has been used to predict how optics behave under thermal loads. In this paper, experimental surface deformations of a space mirror perturbed by thermal gradients are compared to multiphysics simulation results. The local displacements of the mirror surface have been measured by use of electronic speckle pattern interferometry, and the deformation itself has been calculated by subtracting the rigid body motion. After validation of the thermo-mechanical solution, experimental and numerical wavefront errors are compared.