4MOST Milestone: Second Major Shipment to Chile
by Harry Addison on 2025-06-18
Last look at the fibre positioner before packing. (Credit Roelof de Jong)
On the 9th May 2025, ESO gave the green light to start packing some of the subsystems at the AIP, Germany, for shipment to Paranal, Chile.
Work began on detatching the fibre system from the fibre positioner and removing the fibre slits from the spectrographs. The smaller subsystems (detectors, fibre deed, electronics cabinets, calibration system, metrology, and secondary guiding) were then shipped by airfreight on the 20th May and safely arrived in Santiago, Chile, on the 29th May.
On the 13th June, ESO and the 4MOST consortium held a meeting regarding preliminary acceptance in Europe (PAE). 4MOST successfully passed PAE, initiating the final shipment which predominantly contains the spectrographs.
With the AIP integration hall now looking rather empty, we are one step closer to the start of operations. In the coming months, we look towards installing and commissioning 4MOST on VISTA.
Spectrographs packed and ready for shipping. (Credit Roelof de Jong)