ALMA antenna maintenance

Assembly manager and mechanical engineer Pierre Chapus stands atop one of the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) antenna reflectors which is undergoing maintenance and testing at the Operations Support Facility (OSF). The OSF is located at an altitude of 2900 metres.

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.