Spanish government and EIB announce 1bn Euro for Thirty Metre Telescope

India is committed to provide ground and polished mirror segments, 84 in number, required for the large primary mirror of the telescope. India will also manufacture all the precision actuators, edge sensors and Segment Support Assembly (SSA). This is a complex opto-mechanical sub-assemblies that will hold together and control the alignment of each of the 492 hexagonal mirrors that will form the 30-metre primary mirror. 100 SSA segments and 80 mirrors, designed to be placed along the primary mirror’s periphery, will be manufactured in India.

” Reaching this point demonstrates our tremendous commitment to the project. Now it is the turn of the TMT international consortium. We trust that it will recognize the strength of this proposal and choose La Palma as the site for the largest optical and infrared telescope in the northern hemisphere,” said Diana Morant, the Spanish Minister for Science, Innovation and Universities, said on Wednesday.

Her ministry has proposed to contribute 400 million Euro towards this project. About 300 million Euro would be in the form of a loan from the EIB and equal sum by the Official Credit Institute (ICO) for this mega observatory in addition to other contributions summing up to 1 billion Euro.

Over the past one year, aggressive back-door negotiations and activities have been underway in Spain along with atleast five key stakeholders, including the EIB and the TMT consortium.

The Spanish government further said that the initial proposal has now been transformed into a complete financial architecture, detailing the economic capacity to address TMT’s construction and its long-term sustainability. Spain further has presented a comprehensive proposal based on the scientific excellence of the Roque de los Muchachos Observatory. Results from the technical preparations covering permits, studies and engineering stand completed and the details are currently under review.

TMT and its history:

TMT, as the name suggests, will have a primary mirror measuring thirty-metre in diameter allowing astronomers a gigantic surface area for capturing celestial signals and study unexplored areas of the universe.

The scope of science using TMT is vast and ranges from the study of cosmology, the evolution and early formation of the universe, formation of galaxies and early stars, black holes in addition to the study of nearly galaxies and our own, Milky Way.

Originally, TMT was proposed to be built at an estimated cost of 1.4 billion USD and was to come up on Mauna Kea on Hawaii islands. After the groundbreaking ceremony in October, 2014, the on-site construction had progressed till 2015. However, the Hawaiian locals vehemently objected to yet another telescope crowding the Mauna Kea. Long legal battles and negotiations followed and continued till the end of the last decade, but the TMT International Observatory’s construction could not proceed at Hawaii. It was around 2022 – 2023, when the TMT consortium finally decided to move TMT to Spani’s La Palma.

With over a decade’s delay in building TMT, the overall costs have significantly jumped from the original estimates.

Members of the international consortium enjoy several advantages, including decision-making, voting and time to use the telescope observation hours.