Progress Report - February 15 to March 26, 1999

Accomplishments / Status

Summary: Good progress on has been made on the instrument repackaging effort, particularily in top assembly layout, mechanism drive definition and external truss structure.  The Restart Review has been rescheduled to be held July 20-21.  The GNIRS project now has an active web page (http://www.noao.edu/ets/gnirs/) which is regularily updated.  A revised schedule of work through the Restart Review will be posted on this page shortly.

The IFU interface coordination meeting with U. Durham was held on March 9-10.  The goal of the meeting was to produce a revised ICD, and this was accomplished.  A final ICD will be agreed to by the end of May.  A result of this meeting was a change in the order of the Dekker and slit mechanisms to allow a larger space envelope for the IFU modules.  Also, the change to slides (versus wheel) for the slit and Dekker mechanisms made it easier to package the IFU into two modules which will mount on the back side of the slit mechanism.  These modules will be prealigned before delivery and installation into the GNIRS.  A drawing of the Slit Mechanism slide plate was given to Durham at the meeting.

The GNIRS Configuration Design Review was held on March 15 at NOAO. Material from this review is posted on the GNIRS web page (http://www.noao.edu/ets/gnirs/CDR.htm). The meeting was attended by David Montgomery of Gemini, whose review comments are posted on the Web page  with several 3-D configuration images of the instrument.  In general, all milestones required for the review were met with the exception of optical bench defintion which required more detailed definition of the post-slit mechanisms.

Optics: The optics ray trace for GNIRS has been updated and is currently being used in the preliminary design and layout of the instrument.

Negotiations on the II-VI optics contract are in-process.  Depending on the outcome of negotiations, current plans are to procure the Offner primary and seconday and collimator mirrors from II-VI, and use a different technology for the 11 flats used in the repackaged design.  The optics design for these mirrors updated prior to the Restart Review, after which the subject of which optics technology to use for the remaining flat mirrors will be revisited.

RMI has procurred the materal for the window and camera optics and are ready to start fabrication as soon as they receive drawing.  Actual fabrication will not be authorized until after the Restart Review.

Mechanical Design: The optics bench will be comprised of three parts: Front end (or Pre-slit) bench, Wavefront Sensor bench, and Spectrograph bench.  The 3-D preliminary mechanical design of the Pre-Slit bench (POM, offner) bench has been completed.  Modeling based on wavefront sensor component drawings provided by NIRI is underway to define that bench.  The Spectrograph bench layout has started.  The 3-D drafting training of the Design Staff has been completed.  The preliminary layout of the external truss structure has been completed, and is on hold until the instrument center support structure is better defined.  The 3-D layout of the ISS Interface Plate has been completed.  FEA analysis has been postphoned until after the cold bench design configuration has been completed.  A drawing breakdown table, with weight budget, has been created and may be viewed on the web page (http://www.noao.edu/ets/gnirs/Drawlist.htm).

Mechanical Fabrication: No fabrication except for component testing is planned until after the Restart Review.  The Test Dewar, being provided by NOAO, is 90% complete.  Characterization testing of the Test Dewar will be done in early April.  Mechanism drive prototyping will be done in April.

Cold Motor Qualification:  Drive torque of the cold motors has been specified and one Phytron motor (10-12 week lead time) ordered.  In parallel with waiting for the Phytron motor, a commercial Portescap #P530
motor has been purchased and modified for cryo.   This motor has been tested in the CROC dewar, and test results will shortly be posted on the GNIRS web site.

Electronics Design: Completed wiring schematic for new IMS stepper motor psu and amplifier box.  Will test with cryomotors.

Software Development: No activity.
 

 Problems / Solutions

In the January report, a key issue was reported regarding thermal control of the Wavefront Sensor which requires coordination with the IGPO to resolve.  The NIRI version uses thermal control of the optics bench on which the sensor is mounted, and the GNIRS had not planned to use cold bench thermal control. IGPO has determined that no thermal control of the wavefront sensor optics bench is required, and that any variation in focus because of local temperature changes may be handled by adjusting the focus positon of the wavefront sensor detector.
 

 Key Personnel

Ken Ramey, the Software Engineer/Programmer slated to be assigned to GNIRS, has terminated his employment with NOAO.  Due to lack of staff, there is no one currently identified to work GNIRS software.  Software could become a critical path item if an individual experienced in EPICS is not identified and assigned to the project.

Andy Rudeen has been assigned at the 20% level to work on the COB upgrade for Gemini, which will start in April.  This is an approximate 6 month assignment which has no detrimental effect on the GNIRS project.
 

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