ALMA antenna assembly

A rehearsal for the assembly of an Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) antenna is conducted at the Operations Support Facility (OSF), located 2900 metres up in the Chilean Atacama Desert.

ALMA is the largest ground-based astronomy project in existence, comprising a giant array of 12-metre submillimetre antennas, with maximum separations up to 16 kilometres. An additional compact array of 7-metre and 12-metre antennas complements the main array.