The 34-foot-diameter telescope mirror from the Caltech Submillimeter Observatory will be removed from Mauna Kea in pieces this summer, following complications with the original $4 million plan to remove it in one piece.
The new plan will not cause any road closures in Hilo as previously expected, according to a news
release.
Observatory spokesperson
Barbara Hastings said Caltech was building a “cradle” for the telescope mirror to carry it down the 13,803-foot mountain in one piece but it could not be perfected within the allotted time.
“Time is running out because if we don’t get the whole structure down and return (Mauna Kea) to its natural terrain by the beginning of winter, then we’re (doomed) again and we’ll have to wait months and months,” Hastings said.
Caltech will now disassemble the telescope into smaller parts, reversing the process used to assemble it in the 1980s, according to a news release. Telescope parts will be transported down the mountain in shipping containers.
Caltech said that while the new removal process will be riskier for the telescope, there will be less disruption to the surrounding community. Hastings said it is unclear if the new process will take longer than originally anticipated.
Once the telescope is removed from the mountain, general contractor Goodfellow Bros. will take down the observatory buildings and fully restore the site. The telescope mirror will be sent to an unnamed facility in Chile, while the rest of the telescope’s parts will be reused, recycled or sent to a scrapyard, Hastings said.
The Caltech Submillimeter Observatory is the first of five Mauna Kea observatories earmarked for decommissioning as a condition
of a state conservation district use permit for the controversial Thirty Meter Telescope.
Caltech is one of the partners proposing to build the $2.65 billion TMT, which remains on hold while the National Science Foundation conducts environmental studies and weighs the possibility of investing hundreds of millions of dollars in the project.
