LSST E-News

March 2008  •  Volume 1 Number 1  •  Archive

 

PROJECT MANAGER’S CORNER

Don Sweeney, LSST Project Manager

March 2008

With the successful completion of our Conceptual Design Review last September, LSST moved substantially closer to beginning construction. To make the plans for construction and mirror casting a reality, LSST management continued to work on major fund raising. We are pleased to announce that this January the Charles Simonyi Fund for Arts and Sciences provided $20 million and Bill Gates gave $10 million to support the LSST Project. This major joint gift keeps the project on schedule by enabling early fabrication of LSST’s large optics and manufacture of other long-lead components of the LSST system. The mirror casting is scheduled for March 2008 (see accompanying article) and is our major milestone for the spring. * Read more

Over the last six months we have continued to build the LSST team. Carnegie Mellon University is our newest institutional member bringing our growing membership to twenty-three. With CMU, the University of Pittsburgh and Google-Pittsburgh form a strong local node of collaboration. LSST is also building international partnerships. The camera system collaboration with Institute National de Physique Nucleaire de Physique des Particules (IN2P3) is moving forward. At the May All-Hands meeting LSST will bring all team members together for discussions of science, working group meetings and tours hosted by National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA). A key agenda item will be preparation for the upcoming Preliminary Design Review.

Tony Tyson, LSST Director, testified to the House of Representatives Committee on Science and Technology, Subcommittee on Space and Aeronautics on November 8, 2007 about the status of the survey program for near-Earth objects (NEOs). Read more about Dr. Tyson’s testimony.

This January LSST scientists and engineers presented a poster session at the American Astronomical Society meeting in Austin, Texas. We were able to bring the conference goers up-to-date on the project progress and discuss both the technical aspects and scientific plans for the project. For example, the project has completed the preparation of the Request for Proposals (RFP) for sensor development, which will be released this month.

 

LSST E-News is a free email publication of the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope Project. It is for informational purposes only, and the information is subject to change without notice.

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