Steward Observatory Mirror Lab Awarded Contact For Large Synoptic Survey Telescope Mirror

STEWARD OBSERVATORY MIRROR LAB AWARDED CONTRACT
FOR LARGE SYNOPTIC SURVEY TELESCOPE MIRROR

From Lori Stiles, UA News Services, 520-621-1877
January 11, 2005

The LSST Corporation has awarded a $2.3 million contract to the
University
of Arizona Steward Observatory Mirror Lab to purchase the glass and
begin
engineering work for the 8.4-meter diameter main mirror for the Large
Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST).

Acquiring the LSST primary mirror was made possible by a generous,
private
donation from Arizona businessman Richard Caris. The UA award covers
the
first of four phases in an estimated $13.8 million effort to design,
cast,
polish and integrate the mirror into the LSST mirror support cell.
Coupled
with substantial support provided by Research Corporation under the
leadership of John Schaefer, these private funds boost the LSST off the
drawing board and into production.

The LSST is a proposed world-class, ground-based telescope that can
survey
the entire visible sky every three nights. It will generate an awesome
30
terabytes of data per night from a three billion-pixel digital camera,
producing a vast database of information on the universe. LSST will
take
exposures every 10 seconds, opening a movie-like window on objects that
change or move on rapid timescales -- exploding supernovae,
Earth-approaching asteroids, and distant Kuiper belt objects. Via the
light-bending gravity of dark matter, LSST will chart the history of
the
expansion of the universe, yielding a unique probe of the nature of the
mysterious dark energy that fills our universe.

"LSST's rapid deep coverage of the universe is a qualitative leap in
capability that is enabled by progress in microelectronics, software,
and
large optics fabrication," University of California, Davis, Professor
and
LSST Director J. Anthony Tyson said.

"LSST will change the way we observe the universe by mapping the
visible
sky deeply, rapidly, and continuously. It will open entirely new
windows on
our universe, yielding discoveries in a variety of areas of astronomy
and
fundamental physics."

"The LSST will catalog objects, characterize them automatically and
alert
astronomers to interesting results," Steward Observatory astronomer and
LSST
board member Philip A. Pinto said. "And, unlike data from any other big
telescope, LSST data will be public, all the time, available right away
for
everyone."


--------------------------------------------------------
Science Contact Information
J. Anthony Tyson 530-752-3830
Philip A. Pinto 520-621-8678
Donald Sweeney 520-881-2626

Media Contact Information
Suzanne Jacoby, LSST Corp. 520-881-262
Lori Stiles, UA 520-621-1877
Andy Fell, UC Davis 530-752-4533

Related Web site - http://www.lsst.org
-----------------------------------------------------------

Richard Caris, founder and Chairman of the Board of Interface, Inc., in
Scottsdale, Ariz., donated the funds for the LSST primary mirror. Caris
became involved with astronomy in Arizona when his company provided
load
cells for the Large Binocular Telescope. Intrigued with the UA Steward
Observatory astronomy department and mirror lab, Caris first became
interested in the proposed LSST and its search for Near Earth Objects.
He
later was drawn to its mission to probe dark matter and dark energy.
The
data being available to anyone, not just professional astronomers,
further
motivated him to donate the funds to purchase the LSST mirror and jump
start
the project.

"This is an example of how private money can have a major impact on
getting
these kinds of projects off the ground and going," Pinto said. "There's
the
value of the mirror itself. But there's an enormous value in getting
started
at the moment. We'll save three or four years on the construction
schedule.
We'll be in good shape to get the mirror on time for first light in
2012."

Steward Observatory's Mirror Lab team will create the mirror by melting
borosilicate glass in a mold of hollow, hexagonal core boxes that give
the
mirror its strong, lightweight "honeycomb" structure. The mold spins
inside
a giant rotating furnace during casting, reaching peak temperatures at
1180
degrees Celsius (2,156 degrees Fahrenheit) and a spin rate of seven
revolutions per minute. The Mirror Lab has produced four 6.5-meter
mirrors
and two 8.4-meter mirrors by this technique in the last decade.

The prime engineering challenge of the LSST mirror will be leaving a
large
hole in the middle of the mirror, according to LSST Project Manager
Donald
W. Sweeney. "The hole will accommodate the telescope's 5-meter tertiary
(third) mirror. Along with a convex (outwardly curved) 3.4-meter
secondary
mirror, the total LSST optical system will be the fastest, most compact
system of this scale ever built for an advanced research telescope,"
Sweeney
said.

"The challenge compared to previous 8.4-meter telescopes is to engineer
the
LSST so its three mirrors will be held in perfect alignment," Mirror
Lab
Director and Regents' Professor of astronomy Roger Angel said.

The LSST was one of the two highest priorities for future ground-based
telescope facilities in the most recent Decadal Survey of astronomy
conducted by the National Academy of Sciences. LSST will open a new
frontier
in addressing time variable phenomena in astronomy, according to the
May
2000 academy report "Astronomy and Astrophysics in the New Millennium."

The immediate goal of the LSST Corporation is to prepare a detailed
design
for consideration by funding organizations and foundations, toward
telescope
first light as early as 2012. Four sites in Chile, Mexico, and the
Canary
Islands are currently being evaluated to host the telescope, to be
reduced
to two finalists for the site in 2005.

More information and recent LSST graphics are online at
http://www.lsst.org