Mount fabrication begins for the most powerful telescope on Earth

The Giant Magellan Telescope and Ingersoll Machine Tools have announced the start of manufacturing and assembly of the largest telescope mount built in the US.

The 39m-tall precision moving structure was developed in partnership with OHB Digital Connect and the mount will be assembled over the next six years using steel sourced from the US.

In 2022, Ingersoll finalised its 40,000-square-foot manufacturing facility expansion, equipping it with the nation’s newest and largest gantry mill to construct the mount. Once assembled, the mount will undergo performance testing before being shipped nearly 6,000 miles to the Giant Magellan Telescope site in Chile for reassembly.

The Giant Magellan Telescope mount weighs 2,100 metric tons and is designed to support seven of the world’s largest mirrors, adaptive optics, and scientific instruments.

Despite its size, the mount is said to be agile, gliding frictionlessly on a film of oil just 50 microns thick, resisting image quality disruptions and allowing it to track celestial objects billions of light years away. The steel structure sits atop a 22m diameter concrete pier that was engineered to protect the telescope during seismic events in the Chilean Atacama Desert.

“We are proud to be a part of developing and building the mount structure for the Giant Magellan Telescope. Ingersoll’s rich history of building very large, complex, and very accurate machine tools complements the unique design of the telescope and the impressive engineering capability of our partner company OHB in Germany,” said Jeffrey Kimberly, Chief Operating Officer of Ingersoll Machine Tools.“

Advancement of mount fabrication is a major milestone for the Giant Magellan Telescope, now 40% under construction across 36 states and on track to be operational in Chile by the early 2030s.