Since 2005, ESO has been working with its partners and industry to develop an extremely large telescope. ESO's Extremely Large Telescope, or ESO ELT for short, is a revolutionary ground-based telescope that will have a primary mirror 39 metres in size. This will make it the world's largest telescope for visible and infrared light: the world's largest eye in the sky.
The clean room crane will be used in the construction of the ESO ELT in the Atacama Desert on Mount Armazones (3046 metres) in the north of Chile and will support the installation and maintenance of the ‘Phasing and Diagnostic Station’.
Fig. 1: European Southern Observatory - Groundbreaking new telescope ‘Artist's impression of ESO's ELT (credit: ESO)’
Fig. 2: Cleanroom crane with cleanroom-compatible belt hoist and complete enclosure of the PDS.
During the planned periodic maintenance work, the individual optomechanical subsystems of the ‘Phasing and Diagnostic Station (PDS)’ can be individually lifted out of their kinematic mechanical interfaces with the aid of the crane in order to make them ready for use again away from the telescope observation operation. The modular design of the PDS means that it is still ready for use with the other optomechanical subsystems. The crane will also help with the installation of the PDS in the telescope.
An interesting feature of the crane is the Z-shaped cranked boom, which enables the maximum lifting height. This enables the best possible maintenance to be carried out despite the limited space available. The crane is also equipped with a cleanroom-compatible belt hoist and a complete enclosure to prevent any contamination from falling onto the PDS installed underneath.
We wish you every success with the final realisation and would like to thank you once again for the order.
