It has been a busy year for the NRT project team and 5th November 2021 saw another major milestone completed: the submission of the Preliminary Design Review (PDR) document pack. This stage has consolidated all the design work to date from project partners University of Oviedo, Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias and Liverpool John Moores University.
On Friday 5th November, the team submitted the PDR documentation pack to an external expert panel. The panel will now pore through all 657 pages of telescope, enclosure design as well as project management and science overviews.
The International group of panel members have each been approached based on their experience in various aspects of observatory design and operation including a large focus on software which is extremely important for a Robotic Telescope such as the NRT.
Some of the work packages covered are:
Telescope structure
Observatory /enclosure
Software
Optics
Opto-mechanics
Systems Engineering
The panel has been spending the last couple of weeks working through the documentation, making notes and addressing questions back to the team.
In late November the panel will meet with the project team for a number of daily meetings to discuss each part of the presented design and work packages in detail.
This process is extremely important in such a large project to ensure the project will meet its aims and objectives. It reduces risk and aims to gather valuable experience and insight from other projects.