The United Kingdom Astronomy Technology Centre

Solving Design Challenges

Inspired by the scientific need to detect fainter and more distant sources, and to improve our understanding of brighter sources through imaging, spectroscopy and polarimetry our staff skills and design expertise have to cover key aspects of some of the most important topics in the field: optics and optical design, mechanical design and machining, electronics design and fabrication, real-time computer control and data capture and analysis.

Our engineering groups are responsible for these areas of expertise and design excellence. The engineering groups consist of the following design disciplines Applied Optics, Electronics, Mechanical, Software and Systems Engineering.

The UK ATC is providing novel design solutions through our work in major projects which currently include a key instrument (SCUBA 2) for the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope; A mid infrared instrument (MIRI) for the James Webb Space Telescope; the VISTA telescope and infrared camera (VIR) and a multi object spectrograph (KMOS) for the ESO VLT in Chile.