NOVA MAX: manufacturing and assembly facility for ELT-era instrumentation

Thomas Wijnen; Niels Tromp; Eddy Elswijk; Ramon Navarro; Michiel Rodenhuis; Menno Schuil; Menno de Haan; Gerard van Egmond

doi:10.1117/12.3021125

23 August 2024 NOVA MAX: manufacturing and assembly facility for ELT-era instrumentation

Thomas Wijnen, Niels Tromp, Eddy Elswijk, Ramon Navarro, Michiel Rodenhuis, Menno Schuil, Menno de Haan, Gerard van Egmond

Author Affiliations +

Proceedings Volume 13099, Modeling, Systems Engineering, and Project Management for Astronomy XI; 130991P (2024) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.3021125
Event: SPIE Astronomical Telescopes + Instrumentation, 2024, Yokohama, Japan

Conference Poster

Abstract

Moving into the era of Extremely Large Telescopes (ELT), the size and complexity of the instruments increased significantly while constraints and requirements remain tight. NOVA follows a monolithic design strategy, meaning that the size of individual components scales with the size of the instrument. To enable the manufacturing and assembly of the largest components at the required precision, NOVA has invested in a new facility for ELT-era instrumentation: NOVA Manufacturing and Assembly of eXtreme instrumentation (MAX). Here we introduce the capabilities of NOVA MAX, which includes a 5-axis CNC milling machine and a Coordinate-Measuring Machine (CMM) in a temperature-stabilized environment. The CMM is located in a cleanroom with temperature variations < 0.5K/24 hours, enabling micron-level verification and fine-tuning during assembly. This unique assembly facility is crucial when producing large size one-off instruments. We report on, amongst others, the tolerances, dimensions, and loads that can be achieved with both machines and present the first components that have been manufactured for the METIS and MICADO ELT instruments.

(2024) Published by SPIE. Downloading of the abstract is permitted for personal use only.

Citation Download Citation

Thomas Wijnen, Niels Tromp, Eddy Elswijk, Ramon Navarro, Michiel Rodenhuis, Menno Schuil, Menno de Haan, and Gerard van Egmond "NOVA MAX: manufacturing and assembly facility for ELT-era instrumentation", Proc. SPIE 13099, Modeling, Systems Engineering, and Project Management for Astronomy XI, 130991P (23 August 2024); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.3021125

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