AAC Clyde Space has won a contract to maintain radiometers in the telescopes of the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) in Chile. The contract runs for five years and is worth 574 kEUR (approx. 6.2 MSEK).
The subsidiary AAC Omnisys are long term collaborators of the European Southern Observatory (ESO), one of the international partners operating the ALMA radio facility in Chile. AAC Omnisys supplied Water Vapour Radiometers for the antennas at the telescope. The contract now awarded aims to ensure operation of the Water Vapour Radiometers for another five years.
The state-of-the-art ALMA telescope, which is a partnership of ESO, the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) and the National Institutes of Natural Sciences (NINS) of Japan in cooperation with the Republic of Chile, is located on the Chajnantor plateau in the Chilean Andes on an altitude of around 5,000 meters. It studies light from some of the coldest objects in the universe. The light has wavelengths of around a millimetre, between infrared light and radio waves, and is therefore known as millimeter and submillimeter radiation. ALMA comprises 66 high-precision antennas, spread over distances of up to 16 kilometers. This global collaboration is the largest ground-based astronomical project in existence.