Blogs

July 5, 2016 - LSST was well represented at the 2016 SPIE meeting on Astronomical Telescopes & Instrumentation in Edinburgh, Scotland last week with more than 40 LSST-related oral and poster presentations as well as an LSST booth in the exhibition hall.  LSST presentations will be made available through Zenodo.org; press coverage about LSST from the meeting included this article in Optics.org, based on Steve Kahn’s invited talk.  Victor Krabbendam, Frossie Economou, and Bill Gressler also gave invited talks in their respective areas of expertise. 

June 16, 2016 - Several members of the Telescope & Site team traveled to Mestre, Italy the week of June 6^th to conduct a Final Design Review (FDR) of the LSST dome with vendor EIE Group.  LSST acknowledged the high quality of work done by the EIE team and appreciated the good working relationship that has been established.  Nine items were identified that require immediate formal action and closure in writing prior to receiving approval to move into construction.  All of these “Tier 1” items are quite doable and pose no significant issue moving forward.  Overall the quality and quantity of work completed to date was deemed adequate for FDR, and the review a success!

The first set of 24 custom electronics units built by the Telescope & Site group is complete.  Inner Loop Controllers (ILC) are components which measure and control forces with the mirror actuators, shaping the mirror to preserve its precise curvature at different sky positions.  This first shipment of ILC units will be integrated with the LSST secondary mirror cell at Harris Corporation, in Rochester, NY.

The secondary mirror has a total of 72 ILCs configured for controlling the axial actuators, an additional 6 ILCs configured for controlling the tangent links, and 6 more ILCs configured for sensor data acquisition (elevation angle, displacement, and temperature).

June 3, 2016 - Telescope Mount Assembly (TMA) subcontractor Asturfeito continues to build the LSST telescope pier in their facility in Spain; this duplicate pier will be used to support the trial assembly and testing of the TMA.  LSST Telescope Technical Manager Shawn Callahan explains the pier construction process shown in the image:

May 27, 2016 - The 9-meter x 9-meter x 2-meter M1M3 mirror cell weldment, fabricated by CAID Industries, Inc. in Tucson, AZ, is now being prepared for immersion in a large oven for thermal stress relief. The oven is 32 ft x 32 ft x 12 ft and will ramp up at 100deg/hr until it reaches 1150deg. Then the mirror cell is soaked for 8 hours at 1150deg before cooling at 200deg/hr down to 600 deg. From there it’s left to cool naturally. This process starts on June 9th. Final machining is next to prepare the cell for mirror support integration in early 2017. Great progress!

May 20, 2016 - Members of the Data Management Leadership Team (DMLT) gathered in Tucson Monday through Thursday of this week for their quarterly face-to-face meeting.  This group is collectively responsible for the stewardship of the DM construction plan and the coordination of the internal DM working groups as they execute it.  Discussion focused on progress since the February Joint Technical Review, priorities for the upcoming software release in the fall, and modifications to the DM baseline plan that reflect recent restructuring within the team.  Most of the DMLT remained in Tucson through Friday to continue working in smaller groups and to discuss topics related to the science pipeline.

The Telescope and Site team would like to welcome Freddy Muñoz to the La Serena office as he transitions into the role of Summit Integration Engineer. Freddy will be responsible for coordination of the various subsystems to be delivered to the site, especially the vertical reciprocating lift system, the lower enclosure pier interface with the Dome, the pier interface with the Telescope Mount Assembly (TMA) system, the delivery of the Coating Plant system, and the delivery of the TMA. Freddy has a BS and MS in Mechanical Engineering from the University of La Serena and has worked the last three years for CTIO upgrading the 4-meter Blanco telescope after leading successfully the Dark Energy Camera integration and installation on the telescope in 2012.

Over forty participations attended a three day workshop on the O/IR Capabilities Needed to Maximize LSST science at Biosphere 2, May 2nd- 4th. This workshop was sponsored by the Kavli Foundation and endorsed by NSF AST. Joan Najita (NOAO) and Beth Willman chaired the workshop and related study (http://www.noao.edu/meetings/lsst-oir-study/).

Members of the Telescope team traveled to the Moog/CSA Engineering facility in Mountain View, CA to conduct the Integration and Test Plan Review for the hexapod and rotator system contract. Major pieces of the hexapod actuator assembly are shown on the cart to the left, with sections of the curved linear guides for the camera rotator in their shipping crate from THK/Japan. CSA will begin to assemble and test the actuators this fall in CA, with integrated hexapod and rotator system testing to be performed in their CO office beginning in early 2017.