Opportunities exist for Australian industry to bid for contracts offered by the GMT Organisation (GMTO). To ensure Australian industry is well briefed, the Australian GMT Office is organizing an Industry Roadshow.

The Giant Magellan Telescope (GMT) is one of the new class of extremely large earth-based telescopes. Dr Patrick McCarthy, GMTO Director, and Mr Keith Raybould, GMTO Project Manager, will visit Australia in March to brief industry and answer questions relating to upcoming contracts that are relevant to Australian capability.

The Industry Briefings will:

• Provide an overview of the GMT project
• Showcase Australia’s involvement in this $1 billion project
• Highlight upcoming contracts that are relevant to Australian industry
  • Telescope Design
  • Telescope Fabrication, Test Assembly and Shipment to Site
  • Coating System Design and Fabrication
  • Site and Civil Construction
  • Enclosure and Support Building Steel Fabrication
  • Enclosure Bogies and Mechanisms
  • Steel Erection

Download a description of the above projects, RFP release dates and expected contract duration here (PDF, 7.3 MB).

Australia has a 10% share in this precision instrument which will be built in Chile. The consortium members include: Astronomy Australia Ltd, The Australian National University, Carnegie Institution for Science, Harvard University, Smithsonian Institution, University of Texas at Austin, Texas A&M University, The University of Arizona, University of Chicago and the Korea Astronomy and Space Science Institute.

Industry briefings are being conducted with the support of the following organisations:

• Melbourne Monday 3rd March 12:00pm - 2:30pm ICN Victoria, Level 11, 10 Queens Rd, Melbourne To register please contact: Noel Morton 0409 182 952
• Canberra Tuesday 4th March 9:30am - 12:00pm Mount Stromlo Observatory
• Adelaide Thursday 6th March 8:00am - 10:30am The Science Exchange, 55 Exchange Place, Adelaide
• Perth Friday 7th March 9:30am - 11:30am Chamber of Commerce and Industry WA, 180 Hay Street, Perth
• Sydney Monday 10th March 8:00am - 10:30am Trade & Investment Centre, Level 47, 19 Martin Place, Sydney To register please contact: Richard Bufill 0412 416 450 or rbufill@icnnsw.org.au
• Brisbane Tuesday 11th March 7:00am - 10:00am Brisbane International Cnr Zillmere & Sandgate Roads, Boondall, QueenslandBrisbane registration

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Cost: FREE (light refreshments will be served)

To register: Contact the ICN Office in each state

Download a flyer here (PDF, 1.8 MB).

Dr. Patrick McCarthy, Director, GMT Organisation

Dr McCarthy is an astronomer who has been active in scientific and management oversight of large science projects and organizations. He has chaired numerous panels for NASA and the NSF providing independent oversight of the Hubble Space, Spitzer Space Telescope and large telescopes on the ground. He was a member of the science team for the Wide-Field Camera 3 recently installed on Hubble and providing breathtaking new views of the early Universe. He became involved with the GMT project very early in its development.

Dr McCarthy led the GMT Science Working Group that wrote the scientific case for the telescope project and defined the scientific and technical requirements for the facility. In 2008 the GMTO Board appointed him as the GMTO Director, the chief executive of the non-profit corporation, GMTO, that is charged with carrying out the development and operation of the telescope and related facility. His responsibilities include ensuring that the telescope and its instruments will be able to address the key questions at the forefront of astrophysics in 2020 and beyond.

Keith Raybould, Project Manager, GMT Organisation

Keith Raybould joined the GMTO in 2011 as Project Manager after 11 years at MBARI (the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute), most recently as their Chief Operating Officer managing major construction projects funded by the NSF. Keith has extensive experience and expertise working with large project teams tackling engineering challenges associated with large telescope projects.

Keith's engineering career started in the marine field with the Royal Corp of Naval Constructors, designing and procuring naval ships. He moved into the telescope field in 1983 to work on the 3.8m United Kingdom Infrared Red Telescope (UKIRT) and the 15m sub-millimeter James Clerk Maxwell Telescope (JCMT) in Hawaii. While at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory managing the thermal and structural group designing space satellite instrumentation, he was offered the opportunity to work with Roger Davies on the United Kingdom Large Telescope project at Oxford University. After two years of development work, the United Kingdom, the United States and Canada joined together for what became the Gemini 8m telescope project.

In the early 1990's, Keith moved to Tucson, Arizona to manage the Gemini 8m telescope structure, building and enclosure groups, taking each of these areas from their early requirements phase to site construction. He thought that the Gemini 8m telescope was the most exciting and rewarding project he worked on, until GMT came along.

For information on a public talk detailing some of the engineering challenges of the GMT, click here.