Monthly Archives: September 2013

The week of Sept 30th

In the last week the first components of the WFU went into place. We are currently right on schedule.

This week we will be clearing out the last components at the top of the tracker, finishing the removal of any old interconnects on the ground and prepping the dome floor for the next big crane lifts in the following week.

Also we will have painters out at the HET site repainting the CCAS tower white and painting the side of the tower that faces the mirror flat black. Hopefully someone will have some before and after shots of this work.

The week of Sept 23

For this week we have two priorities: 1) we are in the process of cleaning up the upper and lower hex, specifically the lower and upper rails that the old tracker rides on and 2) we are putting in the VIRUS cross support structures. This cross support structures are really the first (of many) pieces of the Wide Field Upgrade equipment to be installed at the HET!

The week of Sept 9.

We are ahead of schedule for the Wide Field Upgrade!

This week at the HET the team will be adding some temporary platforms to the upper and lower hex beams. These will be left in place during the upgrade to allow people to work at these locations with out the man-lift being used (although they better not drink to much coffee!). This will take the first few days of the week. After that we will be moving the tracker to the center location and shutting down all power to the tracker. That will be the last powered move that this tracker will make. Once powered down we will begin de-cabling the motors, draining the glycol lines etc…