EST Design Study

The FP7 project “EST: The large aperture European Solar Telescope” started in February 2008 and finished in July 2011. It was funded by the European Commission with about 3.2 million euro. The project involved 29 European partners, plus 9 collaborating institutions, from 15 different countries.

This project focused on the conceptual design study of EST and successfully demonstrated the scientific, technical and financial feasibility of EST. The conceptual design was possible thanks to the funding granted by the EC and the combined efforts of many scientists and engineers committed to developing new ideas to make this facility a unique infrastructure to study the Sun.