A Roof for ALMA (Forwarded)

ESO Education and Public Relations Dept.

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For Immediate Release: 14 March 2007

ESO ALMA Release 13/07

A Roof for ALMA

Roof-Topping Ceremony Held for the ALMA OSF

On 10 March, an official ceremony took place on the 2,900m high site of the
Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) Operations Support
Facility, from where the ALMA antennas will be remotely controlled. The
ceremony marked the completion of the structural works, while the building
itself will be finished by the end of the year. This will become the
operational centre of one of the most important ground-based astronomical
facilities on Earth.

The ceremony, known as 'Tijerales' in Chile, is the equivalent to the
'roof-topping ceremony' that takes place worldwide, in one form or another,
to celebrate reaching the highest level of a construction. It this case, the
construction is the unique ALMA Operations Support Facility (OSF), located
near the town of San Pedro de Atacama.

"The end of this first stage represents an historic moment for ALMA," said
Hans Rykaczewski, the European ALMA Project Manager. "Once completed in
December 2007, this monumental building of 7,000 square metres will be one
of the largest and most important astronomical operation centres in the
world."

ALMA, located at an elevation of 5,000m in the Atacama Desert of northern
Chile, will provide astronomers with the world's most advanced tool for
exploring the Universe at millimetre and submillimetre wavelengths. ALMA
will detect fainter objects and be able to produce much higher-quality
images at these wavelengths than any previous telescope system.

The OSF buildings are designed to suit the requirements of this exceptional
observatory in a remote, desert location. The facility, which will host
about 100 people during operations, consists of three main buildings: the
technical building, hosting the control centre of the observatory, the
antenna assembly building, including four antenna foundations for testing
and maintenance purposes, and the warehouse building, including mechanical
workshops. Further secondary buildings are the transporter shelters and the
vehicle maintenance facilities as well as the ALMA gate house. The
construction started in August 2006 and will be completed in December 2007.

The ceremony took place in the presence of representatives of the regional
authorities, members of the Chilean Parliament, and representatives of the
local community, including the mayor of San Pedro, Ms. Sandra Berna, who
joined more than 40 representatives of ESO, NRAO and NAOJ -- the
organisations that are, together, building ALMA.

"This is certainly a big step in the realisation of the ALMA Project. The
completion of this facility will be essential for assembly, testing and
adjustment as well as operation and maintenance of all ALMA antennas from
Europe, North America and from Japan," said Ryusuke Ogasawara, the
representative of NAOJ in Chile.

"This is a tremendous achievement and represents a major milestone for the
ALMA project," said Adrian Russell, North American Project Manager for ALMA.

The first ALMA antennas, the prototypes of which successfully achieved their
first combined astronomical observation last week, are expected to arrive at
the ALMA site in a few months. These huge antennas will travel in pieces
from Europe, USA and Japan and will be assembled next to the OSF building.

The Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), an international
astronomy facility, is a partnership among Europe, Japan and North America,
in cooperation with the Republic of Chile. ALMA is funded in Europe by the
European Organisation for Astronomical Research in the Southern Hemisphere,
in Japan by the National Institutes of Natural Sciences (NINS) in
cooperation with the Academia Sinica in Taiwan and in North America by the
U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) in cooperation with the National
Research Council of Canada (NRC). ALMA construction and operations are led
on behalf of Europe by ESO, on behalf of Japan by the National Astronomical
Observatory of Japan (NAOJ) and on behalf of North America by the National
Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO), which is managed by Associated
Universities, Inc. (AUI).

National contacts for the media:

Belgium: Dr. Rodrigo Alvarez, +32-2-474 70 50
Finland: Ms. Tiina Raivo, +358 9 7748 8369
Denmark: Dr. Michael Linden-Vnle, +45-33-18 19 97
France: Dr. Daniel Kunth, +33-1-44 32 80 85
Germany: Dr. Jakob Staude, +49-6221-528229
Italy: Dr. Leopoldo Benacchio, +39-347-230 26 51
The Netherlands: Ms. Marieke Baan, +31-20-525 74 80
Portugal: Prof. Teresa Lago, +351-22-089 833
Sweden: Dr. Jesper Sollerman, +46-8-55 37 85 54
Switzerland: Dr. Martin Steinacher, +41-31-324 23 82
United Kingdom: Mr. Peter Barratt, +44-1793-44 20 25

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