Major Milestone for Thirty Meter Telescope!
Primary Mirror Cell Prototype Arrives at Test Facility in California
An integral piece of the Thirty Meter Telescope's Multi Segment Integration and Test facility (MSIT) was recently delivered to California. After leaving the port of Osaka, Japan, the Primary Mirror Cell prototype arrived and is undergoing minor modifications prior to its final delivery to the TMT laboratory in Monrovia.
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| Mirror Cell Prototype arrival test facility |
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| Preparation In Japan for packing TMT primary mirror cell support structure prototype. Image Credit_ Hitachi Zosen |
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The TMT Primary Mirror System is comprised of 492 active mirror segments; the MSIT will enable integrated testing of up to seven primary mirror segments.
Senior Opto-Mechanical Engineer Fred Kamphues put together this awesome video of the mirror cell prototype's arrival and installation at the test facility:
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TMT
The Thirty Meter Telescope Project has been developed as collaboration among Caltech, UC, the Association of Canadian Universities for Research in Astronomy (ACURA), and the national institutes of Japan, China, and India with the goal to design, develop, construct, and operate a thirty-meter class telescope and observatory on Mauna Kea in cooperation with the University of Hawaii (TMT Project). The TMT International Observatory LLC (TIO), a non-profit organization, was established in May 2014 to carry out the construction and operation phases of the TMT Project. The Members of TIO are Caltech, UC, the National Institutes of Natural Sciences of Japan, the National Astronomical Observatories of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the Department of Science and Technology of India, and the National Research Council (Canada); the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy (AURA) is a TIO Associate. Major funding has been provided by the Gordon & Betty Moore Foundation.
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