1993
1996 |
The adaptive secondary concept proposed by P.Salinari is investigated in detail by the adaptive optics team of Osservatorio Astrofisico di Arcetri, with the contribution of Dipartimento di Ingegneria Aerospaziale - Politecnico di Milano, Microgate and Medialario. |
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| 1997 |
The industrial team is committed to building a first 30 actuators prototype, supported by CNR (Italian Research Council) through Osservatorio Astrofisico di Arcetri. Meanwhile, another prototype using a different approach was built by an U.S. company with previous expertise in adaptive optics. The very positive results obtained by the Italian Team led the way towards the development of the first final system. |
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| 1998 |
The same industrial team is committed to building the first "flying unit", i.e. the adaptive secondary for the MMT 6.5 m conversion. An engineering prototype with 36 actuators is foreseen as a further development step. |
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| 1999 |
36 actuators prototype (P36) completed and successfully tested. The reduced size prototype is identical to the first two innermost actuators rings of the final MMT unit. |
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| 2000 |
The integration of the MMT336 adaptive secondary is successfully completed at Microgate and tested for the dynamic behavior. The unit is moved to Steward Observatory. |
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2000
2001 |
The MMT336 adaptive secondary is installed on a dedicated testing facility at Steward Observatory Mirror Lab for the optical tests. |
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| 2002 |
The MMT336 adaptive secondary is finally moved to the telescope and starts to be used for science. |
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| 2002 |
Microgate and ADS are committed to building two adaptive secondaries for the LBT telescope. The two LBT672 units have 672 actuators each. While maintaining the same concept, the two units implement several improvements. The completely new electronics performs also the Real Time Reconstructor computations. |
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2003
2006 |
a 45 actuators prototype (P45) is completed and successfully tested. The reduced size prototype is identical to the first three innermost actuators rings of the final LBT672 unit. |
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| 2004 |
Microgate, together with ADS, is committed by the European Southern Observatory (ESO) to the development of a feasibility study for an adaptive secondary mirror for the VLT main telescopes (UTs). |
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| 2006 |
Microgate and ADS obtain the design contract for the VLT Deformable Secondary Mirror. The unit is planned to replace the current "chopping" rigid secondary on UT4. |
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| 2007 |
Microgate, acting as prime contractor with its partners ADS, SAFRAN/SAGEM and INAF, obtains the contract for the preliminary design of the E-ELT M4 Adaptive Unit. |
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| 2008 |
Microgate and ADS obtain the manufacturing, assembly, integration and test contract for the VLT Deformable Secondary Mirror. |
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| 2009 |
ADS and Microgate obtain the Phase-A design contract for the GMT (Giant Magellan Telescope) 7-segments adaptive secondary |
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| 2010 |
The first LBT672 adaptive secondary starts operation at the telescope, obtaining from the beginning astonishing results ( > 80% Strehl in H) |
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| 2010 |
The E-ELT M4 preliminary design is completed and the relevant prototype confirm the co-phasing capability needed by the segmented options. |
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