Construction of 30-meter optical telescope to begin next year

The Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT), dubbed as the world's most advanced ground-based observatory, will be built at the summit of Mauna Kea volcano in Hawaii at a cost of 1.2 billion dollars.

The TMT Governing Board concluded its two-day meeting here this evening where it reviewed the status of the project and the contributions to be made by partner nations India, China, Japan, Canada and the US.

"The TMT will be 81 times more senstive than the current telescopes of its kind," Edward Stone, Vice Chairman of the TMT Governing Board, told reporters here.

Gary Sanders, TMT Project Manager said 15 per cent of the 492 mirror segments, each 1.44 m in size, will be fabricated in India.

"Providing primary mirror segments to the TMT is one of the major goals of India-TMT," B Eswar Reddy, Programme Director, India TMT Coordination Center, said after the meeting of the TMT Governing Board.

Reddy said 12 Indian companies have been identified for supply of various components India has to contribute towards the project.

Besides mirror segments, India has agreed to contribute the complete segment support system comprising 1,500 actuators and 3,000 edge sensors required for the project.

A major part of the observatory control software would also be part of India's contribution, Sanders said. (More)