|
Within a difficult and uncertain environment resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic as well as the global geopolitical and economic situation, the ESO’s Extremely Large Telescope (ELT) is progressing on all fronts of design, product and process qualification, manufacturing, subsystem assembly and the two M1 segment coating plants have just been commissioned in the dedicated ELT Technical Facility building at Paranal. The scientific Instruments are now undergoing their final design reviews while series production for the various components constituting the 39 m diameter segmented primary mirror (M1) is well underway. On Cerro Armazones the raft foundations for the dome and for telescope structure are being poured and the piers start to rise above ground. On the programmatic level, all deferred subsystems (so-called phase 2 items) are now funded, and the budget has been moderately increased to account also for infrastructure upgrade needed to fully and optimally integrate the ELT into the Paranal (VLT) Observatory operation scheme. After a year of complete closure of the construction site and other delays in several contracts due to the pandemic and technical difficulties, the programme schedule has been adjusted and Scientific First Light is planned by the end of 2027.
|
