US-ELTP TMT Design and Development Efforts for FY24 Funding

In the 2030s a new era in astronomy will begin with the commissioning of Extremely Large Telescopes (ELTs) with apertures in the 25 to 40-meter range. These facilities will be key to answering many of the fundamental questions raised in the recent National Academies decadal survey in Astronomy and Astrophysics, “Astro2020”, which identified U.S. involvement in future ELTs as its top priority for ground-based astronomy.

One facility being planned is the Thirty Meter Telescope, to be built by TMT International Observatory (TIO), with a preferred site in Hawai’i. TMT will have the spatial resolution (12 times sharper than the Hubble Space Telescope and 4.6 times the JWST) and sensitivity (with adaptive optics, ~200 times more sensitive than 8-m telescopes) to characterize the most distant and earliest galaxies, to study the formation of stellar systems across cosmic time, and to characterize exoplanets — most notably their atmospheres, which might reveal signatures of life.

TMT will be used to address some of humanity’s biggest questions about the universe and our place within it. This award supports further the design of critical components of the telescope and its instrumentation.

Development and risk reduction activities will be concentrated in four key areas: 1) TIO will select a vendor to complete the design of the secondary mirror polishing and metrology equipment needed for the TMT telescope; 2) TIO will advance the design of the Alignment and Phasing System to Final Design; 3) TIO will advance the design of the Laser Guide Star Facility to Final Design; 4) TIO will develop the preliminary design of the Adaptive Optics Sequences, a critical component of the Adaptive Optics subsystem. Some of the key technologies developed as part of this proposal will directly benefit the U.S. astronomical community by advancing the state of the art of critical components that will be required by the current and future generations of astronomical facilities.

Specifically, the work on the TMT mirror support and alignment systems will directly benefit the W.M. Keck Observatory and future U.S. efforts involving segmented-mirror telescopes. The M2 metrology work furthers U.S. astronomy’s development of metrology systems for large convex secondary mirrors, strengthening the nation’s internal capacity to work with this cutting edge technology.

The final design for the LGSF Optical Path and proposed work for the AO Sequences preliminary design will be shared in journals and at conferences, to the benefit of the entire U.S. Adaptive Optics community. The project will document and publish the results of their work, promote diversity in their workforce and partners, and expose early career colleagues to new technology, a key effort in developing the next generation of telescope and instrument builders.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.