Procurement of the dome and the telescope structure of the ESO ELT: status report

The telescope Main Structure and the Dome of the ELT are being procured by ESO as an integrated system together with the auxiliary building and the service plants, and are supplied by the ACe Consortium From the start of the contract, signed in May 2016, major progress has been achieved During the design phase various challenging technical issues had to be solved, not least given the size of the ELT and the environmental conditions at Cerro Armazones in Chile As per today the system has been developed, detail designed, reviewed, and is completing the Final Design Review process Procurement of long lead or schedule critical items was assured by using specific Critical Design Reviews Manufacturing in Europe and construction in Chile have started and are proceeding, although delays were encountered due to various issues including the Covid-19 pandemic In this paper we will describe the advancement reached by the project and discuss some technical aspects associated to the design The status of the design, of the manufacturing and of the construction on site will be described © COPYRIGHT SPIE Downloading of the abstract is permitted for personal use only