An important milestone has been reached in the development of the future European Solar Telescope. The optical design, including the single-conjugate adaptive optics, passed its preliminary design review.
In-person meeting held in La Laguna on October 10 and 11, 2024.
At the beginning of September, the EST engineering team submitted detailed design documentation for evaluation, focusing on the telescope’s optical design, including its single-conjugate adaptive optics. This initiated a comprehensive review process, culminating in an in-person meeting held in La Laguna on October 10 and 11, 2024.
During the meeting, the engineering team engaged in intense discussions with a panel of international experts in large telescope development and solar observation instrumentation. These reviews are considered a crucial step in major scientific projects to ensure independent assessment of the project's quality and feasibility.
Following the review, the expert panel delivered a positive final report, praising the project's progress and endorsing the proposed design. The committee emphasised the competence of the team and highlighted that the optical design is solid and the adaptive optics is sufficiently mature. As usual in these reviews, the panel also identified areas where further work is needed, such as the thermal analysis and the need to address mechanical structure vibrations through more detailed studies.
This successful review marks a significant step forward in the telescope's development, bringing Europe closer to its goal of building a cutting-edge solar telescope capable of revealing unprecedented details of the Sun.
Image credit: Luis Bellot (IAA-CSIC), Inés Bonet (IAC)
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