UK based company polishes off mirror milestone for the World’s largest telescope

Wednesday 30 Oct 2013 @ 11:05
Science and Technology Facilities Council

Two UK-based organisations polishing complex mirror segments for the European Extremely Large Telescope (E-ELT) have reached a key milestone that they hope will help secure them a share of a multi-million pound contract with the European Southern Observatory (ESO) and lead to many new job opportunities.

This giant eye on the sky will have a 39 metre diameter mirror and is set to gather 15 times more light than the largest telescopes in the world today. It will be located on Cerro Armazones in Chile. Its mirror will be made up of 798 hexagonal segments and has very specific requirements due to the sensitivity of the observations it will make. For the UK the project is supported by the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) and UK industry has already won £9 million worth of contracts, and that figure is predicted to increase as much as ten-fold before 2023 when construction is expected to be completed.

The team at Glyndŵr University St Asaph working with Leicestershire-based technology company Zeeko have become the first collaboration in the world to polish right to the edge of hexagonal-shaped mirror using direct mechanical polishing methods and at a scale of ten thousand times smaller than the diameter of a human hair. The requirements were so demanding that this required the development of a unique polishing process and measurement system.

Project Manager Tony Fox-Leonard, from Glyndŵr University St Asaph said: “Acceptance by ESO of a Glyndŵr University manufactured Prototype Segment as compliant to their technical specification for the proposed European Extremely Large Telescope (E-ELT) is a significant achievement for the optical manufacturing industry of the United Kingdom. The manufacture of this optic represents a return of large optics manufacturing capability to the UK after an absence of more than several generations. It is a truly defining moment”.

It is hoped the team can now fully exploit this industrially to enable the UK to bid successfully for some of the manufacturing process for the mirrors that will be required for the E-ELT as well as for many other demanding uses for large high-precision mirrors in ground and space applications.

Zeeko have benefited from the support of STFC Innovation Partnership Scheme projects and originated as a spin-out from University College London.

Earlier this year the UK government committed £88m towards the construction of the E-ELT to ensure UK scientists and engineers, supported by STFC, will be heavily involved in the construction and operation of the telescope and its instruments.

In addition to significantly enhanced worldwide scientific knowledge, the E-ELT will benefit the UK in other ways. Technology developed for astronomy is already being applied across many sectors, including extending the life of artificial knee joints, diagnosing eye diseases, improving the performance of industrial lasers and laser fusion research.

Notes to editors

1. Subject to additional funding commitments from other partners, the E-ELT will be built in Chile by the European Southern Observatory (ESO). The full cost of the E-ELT is €1.1 billion (at 2012 prices) provided through ESO’s 14 existing Member States and the accession of Brazil. The UK is a 16 per cent partner in ESO. Member states include most of Western Europe.

2. The funding will be over ten years from 2013. It is in addition to the £18 million per annum UK subscription to ESO and will come from within the BIS science and research programmes budget. The £88 million includes £35 million which will be awarded by STFC within the UK to instrument production, via UK research institutions and industry.

3. Further information about the E-ELT can be found at the following pages:

http://www.eelt.org.uk/index.html

http://www.eso.org/sci/facilities/eelt/

http://www.stfc.ac.uk/194.aspx

A video overview of how E-ELT will look and operate can be found here:

http://www.eso.org/public/videos/eso1225c/

More videos can be downloaded from ESO’s website:

http://www.eso.org/public/videos/archive/category/e-elt/

More E-ELT images can be found here:

http://www.eso.org/public/images/archive/category/e-elt/

These can all be used as long as ESO is credited.

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