Related papers: The commissioning phase

As China's first X-ray astronomical satellite, Insight-HXMT (Hard X-ray Modulation Telescope) successfully launched on Jun 15, 2017. It performs timing and spectral studies of bright sources to determine their physical parameters. HXMT…

The Star Watch extreme-precision astrometry mission (0.1 - 1.0 uas) builds on technology developed, and validated, during the SIM (Space Interferometry Mission) project. The sole science instrument is an optical interferometer with 50-cm…

The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is a large, infrared space telescope that has recently started its science program which will enable breakthroughs in astrophysics and planetary science. Notably, JWST will provide the very first…

Twenty-six years ago a small committee report, building on earlier studies, expounded a compelling and poetic vision for the future of astronomy, calling for an infrared-optimized space telescope with an aperture of at least $4m$. With the…

LHCb has been installed by spring 2008, followed by intensive testing and commissioning of the system in order to be ready for first data taking. Despite the horizontal geometry of the LHCb detector it was possible to collect over one…

The Chandra X-Ray Observatory (CXO), the x-ray component of NASA's Great Observatories, was launched early in the morning of 1999, July 23 by the Space Shuttle Columbia. The Shuttle launch was only the first step in placing the observatory…

Nancay radiotelescope is involved in high precision timing since 20 years. Since 2004, a coherent dedispersion instrumentation enables numerous routine observations on more than 200 pulsars using half of the time if this 100-meters class…

We describe the second telescope of the Wise Observatory, a 0.46-m Centurion 18 (C18) installed in 2005, which enhances significantly the observing possibilities. The telescope operates from a small dome and is equipped with a large-format…

The Large Area Telescope (LAT) on--board the Fermi Gamma ray Space Telescope began its on--orbit operations on June 23, 2008. Calibrations, defined in a generic sense, correspond to synchronization of trigger signals, optimization of delays…

In preparation for the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI), a new top end was installed on the Mayall 4-meter telescope at Kitt Peak National Observatory. The refurbished telescope and the DESI instrument were successfully…

A cross-dispersed spectrophotometer with CCD detector and its automated 0.5-m telescope at the Fairborn Observatory, now under construction, should begin observations in 6 to 9 months. The Citadel ASTRA Telescope will be able to observe…

The Near Infrared Camera for the James Webb Space Telescope is delivering the imagery that astronomers have hoped for ever since JWST was proposed back in the 1990s. In the Commissioning Period that extended from right after launch to early…

Having achieved 'first-light' right before the opening ceremony on September 25, 2016, the Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical radio Telescope (FAST) is being busily commissioned. Its innovative design requires ~1000 points to be measured…

The first VERITAS (Very Energetic Radiation Imaging Telescope Array System) telescope has been in operation at the basecamp of the Whipple Observatory since January 2005. Here we present initial observations of AGN made using this…

The satellite missions Hipparcos and Gaia by the European Space Agency will together bring a decrease of astrometric errors by a factor 10000, four orders of magnitude, more than was achieved during the preceding 500 years. This modern…

The first science flight of the balloon-borne \Sunrise telescope took place in June 2009 from ESRANGE (near Kiruna/Sweden) to Somerset Island in northern Canada. We describe the scientific aims and mission concept of the project and give an…

The H.E.S.S. instrument consists of four 13 m (H.E.S.S. I) and one 28 m diameter (H.E.S.S. II) Atmospheric Cherenkov Telescopes (ACTs) located in the Khomas Highland in Namibia, 1800 m above sea level. The H.E.S.S. I array began operations…

The H.E.S.S. observatory was recently extended with a fifth telescope located at the center of the array - H.E.S.S. II. With a reflector roughly six times the area of the smaller telescopes and four times more pixels per sky area, this new…

The Stellar Observations Network Group (SONG) has obtained full funding for the design, construction and implementation of a prototype telescope and instrumentation package for the first network node. We describe the layout of such a node…

The Spitzer Space Telescope, NASA's Great Observatory for infrared astronomy, was launched 2003 August 25 and is returning excellent scientific data from its Earth-trailing solar orbit. Spitzer combines the intrinsic sensitivity achievable…