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First TMT Primary Mirror Segment Assembly built at Larsen & Toubro contractor, April 2022 - India-TMT, along with industry partner Larsen and Toubro (L&T) in Coimbatore, have successfully manufactured and assembled the first Segment Support Assembly for TMT production - Image Credit: TMT International Observatory / India TMT Coordination Center

First TMT Primary Mirror Segment Assembly Successfully Manufactured and Built in India

India-TMT and industry partners Larsen and Toubro (L&T) successfully manufactured and assembled the first TMT Segment Support Assembly (SSA) in L&T Coimbatore facility. Hard work paid off and India-TMT successfully passed an Assembly Readiness Review a few weeks ago, presenting their first and recently assembled TMT SSA, including all separate compliant components, which are about 450 precision parts.

SSAs are key subsystems of TMT main mirror onto which are mounted each of the 492 individual hexagonal segments. The SSAs support and control each segment according to TMT’s key performance requirements. They are composed of diverse complex optomechanical devices, sensors, and actuators, holding TMT mirror segments in place and controlling their shape and position to very high accuracy.

TMT M1 Segment Support Assembly assembled at L&T facility in Coimbatore, India by L&T/ ITCC teams, 4 April 2022 - First TMT Segment Support Assembly (SSA) successfully completed. This photograph, taken at the L&T assembly lab, shows a complete segment mechanical support system with position actuators and whiffle trees mechanical interfaces - Image Credit: Larsen and Toubro Limited / India-TMT

India-TMT representative and construction engineering company Larsen and Toubro (L&T) reviewed the first SSA assembly in India – April 1, 2022 - The TMT SSA unit has been fitted together for the first time in India - Image Credit: Larsen and Toubro Limited / India-TMT

TMT Optics, Quality Assurance and Systems Engineering teams could watch the five days of SSA assembly activities and share comments and appreciation about the detailed assembly procedures provided by L&T.

“Congratulations to the team members for this major milestone and to all colleagues who supported the development and manufacture of the SSA instrumentation components in India,” said Bryan Smith, TMT Mechanical Engineer and SSA Work Package Manager. “We look very much forward to working with the India-TMT Co-ordination Centre and L&T teams! A special thanks to Karthic Kumar, SSA Work Package Manager at ITCC, for his professionalism and full dedication resulting in this remarkable achievement. Thanks also to the entire ITCC team and Nikhil Naik, TMT Project Office Production Support Engineer, for his active participation at L&T.”

This is the first hardware assembly completed by L&T, which starts the process on a limited series of 10 units before production begins on a total of 100 SSAs. India-TMT is responsible for delivering 580 required SSAs as part of its TMT partner share.