The Greenland Telescope (GLT): antenna status and future plans

Philippe Raffin; Juan Carlos Algaba-Marcosa; Keiichi Asada; Raymond Blundell; Roberto Burgos; Chih-Cheng Chang; Ming-Tang Chen; Robert Christensen; Paul K. Grimes; C. C. Han; Paul T. P. Ho; Yau-De Huang; Makoto Inoue; Patrick M. Koch; Derek Kubo; Steve Leiker; Ching-Tang Liu; Pierre Martin-Cocher; Satoki Matsushita; Masanori Nakamura; Hiroaki Nishioka; George Nystrom; Scott N. Paine; Nimesh A. Patel; Nicolas Pradel; Hung-Yi Pu; H.-Y. Shen; William Snow; Tirupati K. Sridharan; Ranjani Srinivasan; Edward Tong; Jackie Wang

doi:10.1117/12.2056836

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22 July 2014 The Greenland Telescope (GLT): antenna status and future plans

Philippe Raffin, Juan Carlos Algaba-Marcosa, Keiichi Asada, Raymond Blundell, Roberto Burgos, Chih-Cheng Chang, Ming-Tang Chen, Robert Christensen, Paul K. Grimes, C. C. Han, Paul T. P. Ho, Yau-De Huang, Makoto Inoue, Patrick M. Koch, Derek Kubo, Steve Leiker, Ching-Tang Liu, Pierre Martin-Cocher, Satoki Matsushita, Masanori Nakamura, Hiroaki Nishioka, George Nystrom, Scott N. Paine, Nimesh A. Patel, Nicolas Pradel, Hung-Yi Pu, H.-Y. Shen, William Snow, Tirupati K. Sridharan, Ranjani Srinivasan, Edward Tong, Jackie Wang

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Proceedings Volume 9145, Ground-based and Airborne Telescopes V; 91450G (2014) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2056836
Event: SPIE Astronomical Telescopes + Instrumentation, 2014, Montréal, Quebec, Canada

Abstract

The ALMA North America Prototype Antenna was awarded to the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory (SAO) in 2011. SAO and the Academia Sinica Institute of Astronomy and Astrophysics (ASIAA), SAO’s main partner for this project, are working jointly to relocate the antenna to Greenland to carry out millimeter and submillimeter VLBI observations. This paper presents the work carried out on upgrading the antenna to enable operation in the Arctic climate by the GLT Team to make this challenging project possible, with an emphasis on the unexpected telescope components that had to be either redesigned or changed. Five-years of inactivity, with the antenna laying idle in the desert of New Mexico, coupled with the extreme weather conditions of the selected site in Greenland have it necessary to significantly refurbish the antenna. We found that many components did need to be replaced, such as the antenna support cone, the azimuth bearing, the carbon fiber quadrupod, the hexapod, the HVAC, the tiltmeters, the antenna electronic enclosures housing servo and other drive components, and the cables. We selected Vertex, the original antenna manufacturer, for the main design work, which is in progress. The next coming months will see the major antenna components and subsystems shipped to a site of the US East Coast for test-fitting the major antenna components, which have been retrofitted. The following step will be to ship the components to Greenland to carry out VLBI

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Philippe Raffin, Juan Carlos Algaba-Marcosa, Keiichi Asada, Raymond Blundell, Roberto Burgos, Chih-Cheng Chang, Ming-Tang Chen, Robert Christensen, Paul K. Grimes, C. C. Han, Paul T. P. Ho, Yau-De Huang, Makoto Inoue, Patrick M. Koch, Derek Kubo, Steve Leiker, Ching-Tang Liu, Pierre Martin-Cocher, Satoki Matsushita, Masanori Nakamura, Hiroaki Nishioka, George Nystrom, Scott N. Paine, Nimesh A. Patel, Nicolas Pradel, Hung-Yi Pu, H.-Y. Shen, William Snow, Tirupati K. Sridharan, Ranjani Srinivasan, Edward Tong, and Jackie Wang "The Greenland Telescope (GLT): antenna status and future plans", Proc. SPIE 9145, Ground-based and Airborne Telescopes V, 91450G (22 July 2014); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2056836

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