@inproceedings{40b6737667ff44d19d891dfc4eb69562,
title = "The Greenland Telescope (GLT): Antenna status and future plans",
abstract = "The ALMA North America Prototype Antenna was awarded to the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory (SAO) in 2011. SAO and the Academia Sinica Institute of Astronomy and Astrophysics (ASIAA), SAO's main partner for this project, are working jointly to relocate the antenna to Greenland to carry out millimeter and submillimeter VLBI observations. This paper presents the work carried out on upgrading the antenna to enable operation in the Arctic climate by the GLT Team to make this challenging project possible, with an emphasis on the unexpected telescope components that had to be either redesigned or changed. Five-years of inactivity, with the antenna laying idle in the desert of New Mexico, coupled with the extreme weather conditions of the selected site in Greenland have it necessary to significantly refurbish the antenna. We found that many components did need to be replaced, such as the antenna support cone, the azimuth bearing, the carbon fiber quadrupod, the hexapod, the HVAC, the tiltmeters, the antenna electronic enclosures housing servo and other drive components, and the cables. We selected Vertex, the original antenna manufacturer, for the main design work, which is in progress. The next coming months will see the major antenna components and subsystems shipped to a site of the US East Coast for test-fitting the major antenna components, which have been retrofitted. The following step will be to ship the components to Greenland to carry out VLBI and single dish observations. Antenna reassembly at Summit Station should take place during the summer of 2018.",
keywords = "Greenland, VLBI, antenna retrofit, carbon fiber",
author = "Philippe Raffin and Algaba-Marcosa, {Juan Carlos} and Keiichi Asada and Raymond Blundell and Roberto Burgos and Chang, {Chih Cheng} and Chen, {Ming Tang} and Robert Christensen and Grimes, {Paul K.} and Han, {C. C.} and Ho, {Paul T.P.} and Huang, {Yau De} and Makoto Inoue and Koch, {Patrick M.} and Derek Kubo and Steve Leiker and Liu, {Ching Tang} and Pierre Martin-Cocher and Satoki Matsushita and Masanori Nakamura and Hiroaki Nishioka and George Nystrom and Paine, {Scott N.} and Patel, {Nimesh A.} and Nicolas Pradel and Pu, {Hung Yi} and Shen, {H. Y.} and William Snow and Sridharan, {Tirupati K.} and Ranjani Srinivasan and Edward Tong and Jackie Wang",
note = "Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} 2014 SPIE.; Ground-Based and Airborne Telescopes V ; Conference date: 22-06-2014 Through 27-06-2014",
year = "2014",
doi = "10.1117/12.2056836",
language = "English",
series = "Proceedings of SPIE - The International Society for Optical Engineering",
publisher = "SPIE",
editor = "Hall, {Helen J.} and Stepp, {Larry M.} and Roberto Gilmozzi",
booktitle = "Ground-Based and Airborne Telescopes V",
}