On February 15, 2023, the Product Review of the Small-Sized Telescope (SST) was held at the CTAO office in Bologna (Italy). This review is the formal conclusion of the Design Verification and Engineering Review (DVER) that the telescope underwent in July 2020. During the DVER, certain actions towards the industrialization of the SST and the optimization of the maintenance activities, with a view to reducing the maintenance workload and the cost of the SSTs, were recommended. Thus, the Product Review examined the implementation of the recommended actions and the resulting design choices.
The review was jointly organized by the SST team and the CTAO Project Office, and was carried out along with a panel consisting of experts from the CTAO, collaborating and external institutes. As a result of the review, the preliminary design presented for the SST was unanimously considered globally adequate for further development until the Critical Design Review (CDR). The process is not yet finished: the panel will issue a detailed report with final recommendations to consider for the CDR, the final review for all subsystems to verify that the design is successfully completed and satisfies the specified requirements before its formal acceptance as a CTAO telescope.
The CTAO Project Office would like to thank all participants and in particular the external panel members and chair for their participation, involvement and dedication in the Product Review of the SST.
The SST, one of the three types of telescopes that the CTAO will use to cover its unprecedented energy range, is optimized to detect the highest-energy gamma rays, from about 0.5 TeV up to 300 TeV. The SSTs will outnumber all the other telescopes with 37 planned to be spread out over ~3 km2 in the southern hemisphere array only. The SST full design is based on the so-called ASTRI structure and the Compact High Energy Camera (CHEC). Read more about the SST on the dedicated webpage.