February 10, 2017 - Members of the Telescope & Site (T&S) group were in Italy this week, reviewing progress with EIE on the Dome. The Dome azimuth rail has already shipped from Italy and is due in Chile February 25th. The azimuth bogies and ring beam will be boxed and shipped to Chile starting in mid-February, arriving in Chile in early April. T&S Project Manager Bill Gressler sends this report:
Joe DeVries (T&S Dome Manager) organized a meeting in Venice with Dome vendor European Industrial Engineering (EIE) February 6-7th, to discuss their upcoming onsite mobilization in Chile later this month. The T&S team has been working with Besalco, the summit facility contractor, to finish the major connection points needed to begin the integration of the 30-meter diameter EIE dome atop the lower enclosure ring wall. The first connection is the Dome azimuth steel rail sections to be aligned and grouted atop the lower enclosure embedded interface plates.
Image 1: LSST Project Manager Victor Krabbendam is leading the technical discussion of options to incorporate the EIE hardware atop the Lower Enclosure while not interfering with Besalco construction progress on the summit. Seated next to Victor is Gianpietro Marchiori, EIE President, and Simone De Lorenzi, EIE Dome Manager. Ingredients for success include the usual suspects: computer models, paper/markers, coffee/sugar/water, and a live webcam feed of the LSST summit, along with an occasional Skype discussion from Tucson…truly an international effort!Image 2: A portion of the completed and assembled 30-meter diameter dome azimuth box beam sections…they barely fit together as a ring in the shop. This is the frame which is supported by the bogie wheels (to rotate on the azimuth rail) and supports the main vertical structural columns of the dome.
Image 3: The completed 15 bogie wheel assemblies (14 are used by the LSST dome, with 1 spare). These were all inspected at the EIE fabrication vendor Galbiati Group in Lecco, Italy.
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Financial support for Rubin Observatory comes from the National Science Foundation (NSF) through Cooperative Support Agreement No. 1202910, the Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Science under Contract No. DE-AC02-76SF00515, and private funding raised by the LSST Corporation. The NSF-funded Rubin Observatory Project Office for construction was established as an operating center under management of the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy (AURA). The DOE-funded effort to build the the Rubin Observatory LSST Camera (LSSTCam) is managed by the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory (SLAC).
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