Project Number: CTA-DEV GA 676134
Project Acronym: CTA-DEV
Project Title: Cherenkov Telescope Array: Infrastructure Development and Start of Implementation
Project Number: CTA-DEV GA 676134
Project Acronym: CTA-DEV
Project Title: Cherenkov Telescope Array: Infrastructure Development and Start of Implementation
This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programs under Grant Agreement No 676134.
Call: H2020-INFRADEV-1-2015-1
Topic: INFRADEV-3-2015
Maximum Grant Amount: EUR 4,257,813.00
Sole Beneficiary: CTAO gGmbH
Start Date: 01.07.2015
End Date: 31.12.2020
The objective of the CTA-DEV Project was to promote and speed up the implementation of the Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA) astronomical facility, specifically for its southern hemisphere site in northern Chile (CTA-South), by addressing the following bottlenecks identified by the ESFRI High Level Expert Group: “Site preparation/site infrastructure to address the specific challenge of characterising and surveying remote sites in the southern hemisphere, designing and implementing site infrastructure, defining appropriate long term agreements with host country, and preparing for construction to begin.”
CTA Southern Hemisphere Site Rendering; credit: Gabriel Pérez Diaz, IAC / Marc-André Besel, CTAO
In more detail, CTA-DEV Project objectives addressed the following four critical areas:
The CTA-DEV Project aim was to ensure and expedite the implementation of the CTA facility by providing adequate resources for planning and management and enabling the CTAO gGmbH to address these critical areas, up to the first stages of implementation.
The objective of WP1 is the overall management of the CTA-DEV Project and project administration, including: scheduling, budgeting, finance tracking, contract management, quality assurance, external reviews, reporting, and communications with the Commission.
The objectives of this work package are site characterization, infrastructure design and planning, prior and after the site decision, as well as advancing systems design (with special focus on Reliability, Availability and Maintainability) of all components part of the final site infrastructure.
Detailed planning of infrastructure deployment and management of the implementation of this plan on the pre-production telescopes.
This work package covers two areas: the legal aspects of specific agreements that we currently know will have to be completed prior implementation; and general ad-hoc legal advice, particularly relevant to procurement and site permits.
Investigation of outreach possibilities in the host country and implications for infrastructure design resulting from this investigation. Implementation of stakeholder management and communication to ensure that local communities and other stakeholders are adequately considered and engaged. Start-up of general outreach.
The CTA-DEV project has proven to be an essential step towards realizing the CTA Observatory by providing funding in an interim period for several under-funded aspects to actually lunch construction of the facility and prevent these issues becoming barriers to timely implementation. The project addressed several bottlenecks in the field of site preparation and characterization of the remote southern site in the Atacama Desert, optimizing technical components and detailed planning of infrastructure, setting up the legal frameworks and enhancing our communications concepts.
The specific impact of the CTA-DEV Project has been achieved with:
Therefore, CTA-DEV has significantly helped the Observatory in the progress towards construction and promoting the decision by the agencies to approve the implementation of the CTA facility.