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Largest digital camera delivered to Rubin Observatory; team begins checkout
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Summary
The Rubin Observatory's LSST camera, built at SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, has been delivered to the mountaintop site in Chile and placed in a clean room for testing; logistics staff described the complex air and ground transport and the protections used to guard 189 sensors less than half a millimeter apart.
The logistics lead at the Rubin Observatory announced that the largest digital camera in the world — the LSST camera built at SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory in California — has been delivered to the mountaintop site in Chile and is being prepared for installation.
"The largest digital camera in the world has just been delivered to this mountaintop in Chile, and we are very close to being able to take our first images," the logistics lead said, adding that the instrument "took 10 years just to build" and will be used for about 10 years to create a time-lapse survey of the Southern Hemisphere night sky.
The camera features large, precisely positioned lenses and 189 individual sensors to capture light from distant stars and galaxies. The logistics lead noted that the sensors "sit less than half a millimeter apart" and described the shipping protections used to prevent damage: the camera was placed in a custom shipping container with a finely tuned suspension designed to damp shocks and vibrations during the transcontinental journey.
For the air leg, the camera and about 50 tons of support equipment were flown from California to Santiago on a 747 cargo plane. "I had thought about hugging the camera during the whole flight just in case of turbulence," the logistics lead said, "but the vibration isolation system did a much better job than I could have."
From Santiago the equipment was moved onto nine trucks for the roughly 10-hour drive north to the base of the mountain. Trucks then navigated a 35-kilometer winding dirt road to the observatory gate and a careful four-hour final ascent to the summit. Staff graded and stabilized the road in advance and drove cautiously given the instrument's value: the logistics lead described it as a $168,000,000 instrument.
After arrival the camera was unloaded into a purpose-built clean room for testing and checkout. Once checks are complete, the camera will be installed on the Rubin Observatory telescope and commissioning will begin for the planned 10-year survey.
The transcript does not specify the calendar date of delivery; the logistics lead's remarks reported the sequence of events and the condition of the instrument at arrival.
