Pathfinder Dismount Campaign – June 2015

In order to make way for the full LINC-NIRVANA instrument, the Pathfinder experiment was removed from the telescope during June 2015. Harald Baumeister and Florian Briegel of the LN team, ably assisted by mountain staff, achieved a number of important goals during this campaign:

  • uncable and crane Pathfinder from the telescope
  • disassemble the large mounting "foot"
  • remove items from the wavefront sensor for adjustment
  • ship optics and electronics back to Heidelberg
  • protect and store the wavefront sensor
  • hand over infrared test camera to LBTO

This was a lot of work in diverse disciplines. Congratulations to Harald, Florian, and the mountain staff for a job well done!

Pathfinder "flying" off the telescope, on its way to the mountain lab.

Safely stowed in the mountain lab, the DX Ground-Layer Wavefront Sensor waits for the remainder of LINC-NIRVANA to arrive.

Angle adjustment stages and star probes were shipped back to Europe for upgrade to their final, LINC-NIRVANA configuration.