The Cherenkov Telescope Array Observatory (CTAO) will include telescopes of three different sizes, the smallest of which are the Small-Sized Telescopes (SSTs). In particular, the SSTs will be installed at the southern site of CTAO, on the Chilean Andes, and will cover the highest energy range of CTAO (up to ~300 TeV). The SSTs are developed by an international consortium of institutes that will provide them as an in-kind contribution to CTAO. The optical design of the SSTs is based on a Schwarzschild-Couder-like dual-mirror polynomial configuration, with a primary aperture of 4.3m diameter. They are equipped with a focal plane camera based on SiPM detectors covering a field of view of ~9°. The preliminary design of the SST telescopes was evaluated and approved during the Product Review (PR) organised with CTAO in February 2023. The SST project is now going through a consolidation phase leading to the finalisation and submission of the final design to the Critical Design Review (CDR), expected to occur late 2024, after which the production and construction of the telescopes will begin leading to a delivery of the telescopes to CTAO southern site starting at the end of 2025-early 2026 onward. In this contribution we will present the progress of the SST programme, including the results of the PDR, the consolidation phase of the project and the plan up to the on-site integration of the telescopes.
The ALMA observatory in Chile is an interferometer consisting of 66 antennas that act together as a single telescope. Each antenna hosts a set of 10 receivers working in different frequency bands. The repetitive nature of ALMA demands a “serial” approach towards the development and production of its receivers. Series of up to 70 (66 and spares) high quality and reliable receivers are required, which can only be achieved when a special work attitude is adopted. All starts with a good design, considering that the receivers must be built in small series. Parts are ordered in industry, the design must be simple, structural wise, with as little as possible different parts. The receivers must be easy to build, accessible with dedicated tools and best is if assembly is possible with a single engineer only. In the ordering process contact on a regular basis is vital, not all information is transferable in drawings and documents. Working with wellknown companies is preferable. Inspection of components and parts needs the highest priority: for the assembly phase no checking or rework shall be needed. The engineer must be confident that all is perfect, just to be able to focus on the assembly only. Part of the inspection is the electronic and RF testing of different components. This beholds implementation of a good documenting system for these inspections: to be able to have close and fruitful contacts with the manufacturers, inspection reports are invaluable for a feedback loop to optimize the production of parts. Also, lessons learned in these documents from former projects shall be studied in advance of the start of the inspection or even the design phase. Conclusion is that to make reliable instruments in a repeatable way, hyperfocus is needed at the assembly process: the consequence is that all components on the workbench need to be in perfect condition; Product and Quality Assurance is the heart of this process.
The BlackGEM array Phase I consists of three wide field, optical telescopes, located at the ESO La Silla Observatory, Chile. Each telescope is of a modified Dall-Kirkham design, using an 0.6m primary mirror and a 110 Mpix STA1600 CCD to give a 2.7 square degrees field-of-view sampled at 0.56"/pixel. Preliminary commissioning data shows performance on-par with design specifications. Data obtained with the BlackGEM prototype MeerLICHT highlights the capabilities of the design with a 5-sigma limiting magnitude of mAB=22.2 in 300s of integration under dark-sky conditions. Extrapolation to the 1" seeing-conditions expected at La Silla shows that the main goal of BlackGEM to probe down to mAB=23 in 300s can be met. The project suffered a 2-year COVID-19 delay. Commissioning of the array has currently been resumed and science operations are expected to start in Q3/Q4 of 2022. The science programs include the follow-up of gravitational wave alerts from LIGO/Virgo/KAGRA, a six-filter Southern Sky Survey, a Fast Synoptic Survey on selected fields, a Local Universe intra-night monitoring program and a inter-night single-band monitoring for slower transients.
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