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Ray Carlberg, LOT Project Director
The project has just prepared an overall construction proposal in preparation for raising funds. The proposal is a “short” 200 pages. Scott Roberts of HIA was the lead author, pulling together the documents produced by hundreds of people. The proposal summarizes several thousands of pages of other documents, beginning with science requirements, which lead to observatory requirements which lead to technical requirements on all the subsystems, for which detailed engineering designs are presented along with modelling demonstrations that the designs meet the specs. The designs have sufficient detail in materials, components and labour to allow the project to estimate costs and reserve funds. And there is an overall operating plan that will deliver a basic level of observing support (a more or less classically scheduled system, but time-sharing is possible) at a cost of about US$25M per year, which is statistically in line with most other astronomical facilities on this scale. The review approved the design changes that largely brought the telescope into line with the Board cost cap, to a current cost of about US$750M in base year 2006 funds.
Canadian work in TMT is highlighted in a short video, either TMT movie small or big at http://qold.astro.utoronto.ca/carlberg/lot/indexx.html (note the extra x). Empire Dynamic Systems (DSL, the former AMEC Dynamic Systems) is continuing to lead this critical path work. HIA is leading the NFIRAOS first light AO system work. ACURA is currently acquiring the $1M tip-tilt stage which will be first tested then integrated into the system. ACURA is also acquiring four test mirror blanks on behalf of the project. One blank will be cast in Japan on June 26. David Crampton and Luc Simard are the TMT Instrument Managers that are currently beginning planning of the next stage of instrument design and how multi-partner teams will be pulled together to get the immense amount of work done. We expect to draw Canadian industries into this work as the design plans firm up. Our official lot website is getting a make-over thanks to Chris Acconcia, a summer student from McMaster University.
The entire TMT Scientific Advisory Committee will meet in Victoria at the end of July under Paul Hickson’s leadership. The TMT SAC is a very powerful group that advises the board directly on all scientific requirements for the telescope. Paul has served with distinction in this role for nearly two years which has seen the project resolve a whole host of difficult debates over priorities in a limited budget environment.
One interesting instrumentation development is that it turns out that TMT in AO mode has nearly the same basic optical characteristics as Keck. This means much of the MOSFIRE instrument being developed for Keck can be “cloned” (designed at incremental cost) for a first light IR multi-object slit spectrograph behind the NFIRAOS AO system. This will complement the powerful on-axis IRIS integral-field unit, fully diffraction limited spectrograph, and, a relatively high spectral resolution optical multi-object spectrograph. Together these will be able to contribute to studies of planets, star formation, galaxy formation and even probe the physics of inflation (through small scale clustering in the IGM).
TMT remains technically on track to initiate construction in 2009. The project team will now spend a lot of time going into greater detail with the design, with a strong emphasis on “value engineering” to reduce costs and risk. With a contingency budget of nearly $200M, risk reduction alone can generate very significant returns. We plan to select a site in the late spring of 2008 and expect that we will have a number of sites with legal access well underway. For instance we are in the process of finalizing the overall agreement with Chile to give us legal status as a scientific observatory.
We now start to fund raise with the goal of having commitments in place about a year from now. The cash is not required until spring 2009. The Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation is expected to continue to play an important role in supporting our US partners. AURA and the NSF have initiated a post-senior review process to determine how they can engage in a “Giant Segmented Mirror Telescope” (GSMT), their generic name for TMT and GMT. Japanese astronomers have their own national planning process which is in the initial stages of a national engagement with TMT.
In Canada astronomy funding has been running on a five year basis, with 2007-12 being the next funding period. Canadian TMT design money is now completely in place through CFI and NSERC peer-reviewed awards with NRC providing matching funds. Canadian contributions to TMT will require approximately C$116M to March 31, 2012, under the assumptions of 1C$=0.90 US$ and 2.5% inflation. A second award of approximately $173M will be required to complete our share of the work. Under these assumptions our contributions will lead to an ownership of 25.9% of TMT. There are bound to be lots of details in exactly how this works but overall we continue to live within the budget we laid out back in 2003.
Fund raising on the scale of TMT necessarily involves direct contact with senior federal government managers and their ministers. The Canadian Coalition for Astronomy leads these discussions in support of the Long Range Plan for Astronomy. If the TMT project is to proceed smoothly, which is a key element in minimizing TMT costs and in allowing progress on all elements of the LRP, we need to secure the 2012 funding commitment, if that remains the governments preferred time-frame, over the next year. It is safe to say that this will be an interesting year for all partners. The challenge of funding the DDP alone was quite significant but had the significant benefit of putting in place a conversation between the requests of astronomers and the needs and limits of the sponsors. It would be wonderful if this all proceeded smoothly on the basis of our well prepared plans, however everyone understands that the smoother it looks from the outside relatively more effort is being expended and more goodwill is being built behind the scenes.