After negotiations during the last year, the Director of the CTA (Cherenkov Telescope Array) Observatory, Ueli Straumann, and the Director of the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC), Rafael Rebolo, signed yesterday Monday, 19th September, at the Max Planck Institute for Nuclear Physics, Heidelberg (Germany), a framework agreement for the installation at the Roque de los Muchachos Observatory (Garafía, La Palma), of the 19 telescopes planned to make up the northern hemisphere component of this array. At this meeting there were also present Inmaculada Figueroa, the Deputy Director General for International Relations in the Secretariat of State of R+D+I at the Ministry of Economy and Competitivity of the Government of Spain, and the astrophysicist Ramón García López, in charge of the CTA project at the IAC.
The IAC guarantees access for the CTA to the infrastructure and relevant common services, notably the excellent digital connections of the Canary Island Observatories with the rest of the world. By virtue of this agreement, Spain will receive 10% of the observing time, which can be divided between the northern and southern hemisphere parts of the total array. Future contributions of Spain to the construction of the telescopes will facilitate access to observing time to Spanish groups as part of the scientifics programs and as well as observing time that will be offered in open competition to all countries involved in the project.
“This is a big step, which allows CTAO to start work on the ground”, said Ulrich Straumann. Rafael Rebolo was very positive about the future: “We are looking forward to a great partnership with CTA, and expect exciting discoveries with these telescopes”. Proffesor Masahiro Teshima form Tokyo University and PI of the LST Consortium added: "This agreement is a very important step for CTA. The University of Tokyo is considering to establish soon a technical and scientific group at IAC for further develop and speed up the construction of the 23m LSTs in la Palma".
The Secretariat of State of R+D+I of the Spanish Government has already assigned its contribution to the project Budget, and it is foreseen that the Canary Government will do the same quite soon.
The Council of the CTA decided in July last year that the Roque de los Muchachos Observatory, sited in the municipality of Garafía on the Island of La Palma, could be the site for its main northern hemisphere installation. CTA will be based at two observatories, one in each hemisphere, each comprising an array of new generation Cherenkov telescopes, to study high energy gamma rays. The northern hemisphere array will comprise four telescopes of 23m diameter, and 15 of 12m diameter.
En el Consorcio CTA participan 32 países: Alemania, Argentina, Armenia, Australia, Austria, Brasil, Bulgaria, Canadá, Chile, Croacia, España, Estados Unidos, Eslovenia, Finlandia, Francia, Grecia, India, Irlanda, Italia, Japón, México, Namibia, Noruega, Países Bajos, Polonia, República Checa, Sudáfrica, Suecia, Suiza, Tailandia, Reino Unido y Ucrania.
There are 32 countries participating in the CTA consortium: Argentina, Armenia, Australia, Austria, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Chile, Croatia, Czech Republic, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, India, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Namibia, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Slovenia, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Thailand, the UK, Ukraine and the USA.
Related press releases:
The CTA has chosen the island of La Palma for one of its two observing sites
https://portal.cta-observatory.org/Pages/News.aspx
Press release of the Secretariat of Statet for R+D+I
