TENDER FOR THE SUPPLY OF THE ELECTROMECHANICAL STRUCTURES FOR THE CTAO ARRAY OF SMALL-SIZED TELESCOPES (SST), INCLUDING SUBSYSTEMS AND ALL ACTIVITIES RELATED TO AND NECESSARY FOR THEIR INSTALLATION.
An international consortium of institutes led by INAF, the Italian National Institute for Astrophysics, will provide the SST telescopes as an in-kind contribution to the Cherenkov Telescope Array Observatory (CTAO). The SST will be installed at the CTAO Southern Array Site in the Chilean Andes. More information available on the CTAO website: https://www.cta-observatory.org.
This tender deals with the design, production, assembling, shipping, on-site integration, calibration, and verification of up to 25 SST telescopes. This is the first of two tenders for producing the SST electromechanical structures that the SST consortium will issue. INAF has issued this first tender; the second one will be issued by CNRS at the end of next year or early 2025. In both cases, we will use the same design, making identical structures.
In February 2023, the SST Consortium went through the Product Review organized with CTAO. Thanks to that, the preliminary design of the telescope and its subsystems, the organization and the management plan of the consortium and the programmatic schedule were approved, providing the input documentation for this tender.
Each SST Telescope (SST-TEL) is composed of 4 subsystems:
- SST-MEC (electro-mechanical structure including Mount, Optical Support Structure, Electrical & Control System Cabinets, Protection System, Auxiliary Devices, Maintenance and AIT/V Tools)
- SST-OPT (the Optics consisting in M1 and M2 mirrors)
- SST-TCS (the high-level SW that manages the telescope subsystems)
- SST-CAM (the camera Cherenkov)
This tender specifically regards the supply and implementation in Chile of the SST electromechanical structures. It includes all activities and deliverables throughout the various development phases of the production of the SST Telescopes and their installation, aiming at:
- consolidating the preliminary SST-MEC sub-system design approved at the Product Review;
- addressing the preliminary SST-MEC electro-mechanical design towards the CDR reviews till the final approved version
- providing the entire set of 3D design and construction documentation (including the definition of all the subsystems and materials to be used for the production, AIV plans, handbook maintenance plans and documentation);
- realizing up to 25 SST electromechanical structures, including the Mount system, Optical Support Structure, Electrical System, Telescope Protection System, Auxiliary Devices, Software and Maintenance Tool;
- assembling, integrating and testing the first SST-TEL on-factory (including the optics and the focal plane camera);
- managing all the shipment activities related to SST-MEC and SST-OPT sub-systems;
- assembling, calibrating and testing up to 25 SST-TEL onsite (including the optics and the focal plane camera).
All information related to the Tender Dossier can be retrieved on the Italian version of the TED called GUUE (Gazzetta Ufficiale Unione Europea) at the following link: https://ted.europa.eu/udl?uri=TED:NOTICE:627941-2023:TEXT:IT:HTML
Please note that the Tender Documentation (except for the SoW and related applicable and reference documents) is in Italian.
Deadline for Submission of Proposals: 24.11.2023 – 23:00 CEST