Funded by the Canary Islands Government, it has allowed to set up the EST Project Office.
Members of the EST project office at the EST headquarters in La Laguna
The European Solar Telescope was included in the Research and Innovation Strategies for Smart Specialisation (RIS-3) of the Canary Islands for the period 2014-2020, approved by the Canary Islands Governing Council on December 26, 2013 and ratified by the Canary Islands Parliament on March 10, 2014. A priority objective of the Canary Islands Government was to generate scientific and technical knowledge of excellence in the areas declared prioritary for the Canary Islands.
The Government Council of the Canary Islands approved in April 2017 a multi-annual budget as a contribution to the EST preparatory phase Project Office with a total budget of 4.5 million euros. On September 2023, this project has come to the end, with a successful development, achieving its main goal of creating the EST Project Office (EST PO).
The EST PO was started in 2018 and consolidated over the following years. During the funding period, the EST PO worked on the preliminary design of telescope subystems and reviewed externally subcontracted designs.
The revision and consolidation of the conceptual design allowed closing the technical specifications for the calls for tenders for the preliminary design of the main telescope subsystems: primary mirror, adaptive secondary mirror (ASM), structure, pier, enclosure (which have been concluded) and heat rejecter (in progress).
All the preliminary design contracts have been divided in 3 phases: consolidation of the baseline designs, development of the preliminary design and fabrication of prototypes to verify the more challenging requirements. All the closed preliminary designs have passed the corresponding subsystem preliminary design reviews.
Since the ASM represents a challenge, two alternative calls for tenders have been announced to develop designs based on different technologies, thus minimising risks and ensuring that the best solution for EST is approached. The second call for tenders was awarded in 2023.
In parallel to the execution of the external contracts, which have been monitored and reviewed by the EST PO staff, work has continued on the rest of the telescope systems with the objective of closing their conceptual and/or preliminary designs.
The EST PO has specialised in transient and seeing analysis, with the support of external consultants (covered by the Canarian Government funding), to minimise the local seeing by optimising the telescope design.
Verifications have continued also on the multiconjugated adaptive optics (AO) demonstrator test bench, progressing from classic AO to ground layer AO and hopefully soon to multiconjugated AO.
The approval on May 21, 2021 of the EST site at Roque de los Muchachos Observatory has allowed adapting the building design to the final location. The technical documentation for the next call for tenders for the basic civil works project has been completed.
At the moment of closing this funding line from the Canary Islands Government, the ESP PO is established and continues working on the documentation for the Preliminary Design Review in the third quarter of 2024.
The funding of the EST PO was approved as an action of strategic interest for the archipelago to contribute to the leadership of the Canary Islands in the astronomy sector. Both the EST PO and the EST team acknowledge the support during this phase from the Agencia Canaria de Investigación, Innovación y Sociedad de la Información del Gobierno de Canarias (ACIISI) and the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) under grant with reference SD 17/01 EST GOBCAN.