The ESO's ELT construction progress
Roberto Tamai, Bertrand Koehler, Michele Cirasuolo, Fabio Biancat-Marchet, Mauro Tuti, Juan-Carlos González-Herrera
Abstract
The ESO’s Extremely Large Telescope (ELT), which green light for construction was given back in December 2014, is now progressing at full speed in its final design and manufacturing stage with only very few procurements remaining to be placed. The construction of the Dome and Main Structure foundations at Cerro Armazones in Chile is well advanced and hardware produced though more than 30 industrial contracts (mostly in Europe) has started to come out of the factories. The four first generation instruments and adaptive optics module are also progressing now towards their final design. Tremendous progress has also been made in gradually incorporating most of the items that were originally deferred to a Phase 2 due to lack of funding. A number of difficulties are encountered, the current COVID-19 pandemic being one of them affecting activities both in Europe and in Chile and putting at risk the target for first light date currently set to end 2025.