The removal of a Maunakea telescope will begin as soon as next week after lengthy delays.
The removal of a Maunakea telescope will begin as soon as next week after lengthy delays.
The Caltech Submillimeter Observatory on Maunakea is the first of five telescopes to be decommissioned in exchange for the planned eventual construction of the Thirty Meter Telescope. As part of Caltech’s plan to demolish the facility and restore the site to a natural state, the telescope and its 34-foot-diameter primary mirror will be removed this month.
Caltech reported Thursday that the 120-ton crane needed to remove the telescope will be transported up the mountain imminently, possibly as early as today. Work to remove the telescope itself will begin shortly thereafter, tentatively on Monday, Sept. 11.
The removal process will take a few months, as the steel frame of the primary mirror must be dismantled on-site into pieces small enough to fit into shipping containers.
The observatory’s secondary mirror, measuring about three-quarters of a meter across, was removed in August. Both mirrors will eventually be transported to an observatory in Chile.
The rest of the observatory, including the dome, will remain standing until the spring in order to prevent work from being paused during the winter months.
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