Opening new frontiers in Space!

Liverpool’s exciting new telescope project is putting the region on the map in Space science.

For 20 years, Liverpool John Moores University has run one of the world’s most efficient classification observatory able to respond rapidly to sudden and dramatic events in Space.

Now, as our video illustrates, a new £26 million project - to build the world’s largest fully autonomous robotic telescope – is taking humankind where it has never been before!

“We’re looking to the future – at something bigger and faster,” says Dr Helen Jermak, project manager at LJMU’s Astrophysics Research Institute.

The video features David Copley, a LJMU systems engineer tasked with designing the 70 tonne scope and mike Brizell, project manager at ARUP who will be building the ‘clam-shell housing on a mountain top in La Palma.

Alan Cross, Research and Development Manager at the Science and Technology Facilities Council, says the project is not only seismic for science but excellent news for engineering, technology and manufacturing in the region and further afield.

“A huge project like the New Robotic Telescope fits very well into the ecosystem of the Space economy, in research and development but also in public outreach, deep science and where industry meets science.”

The partners, which include the Institute of Astrophysics of the Canary Islands and The University of Oviedo, with financial backing from the Science & Technology Facilities Council (UK), have begun preparing the mountain-top site, which is a stone’s throw from the existing, Liverpool Telescope.