Gemini 8-M Telescopes Project, Aura, 950 N. Cherry Ave, PO Box 26732, Tucson, Arizona 85719

R -- OPTICAL ENGINEERING SERVICES FOR MULTI-CONJUGATE ADAPTIVE OPTICS SOL N200243 DUE 022500 POC Andrew Flach, Contracts Manager, 520-318-8537 WEB: General information about the Gemini Observatory, http://www.gemini.edu. E-MAIL: Email Gemini Contracts Manager, aflach@gemini.edu. The Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc. (AURA), acting as the operator of the Gemini Observatory (see below), is seeking qualified optical designers to provide design support for the multi-conjugate adaptive optics (MCAO: see below) system which has been proposed for the Gemini-South telescope. This task will involve developing the optical designs for the adaptive optics module (AOM) and laser launch telescope (LLT) to a conceptual design review (CoDR) level, with possible follow-on work directed towards a preliminary design review (PDR). The LLT must project 5 laser beams to the mesospheric sodium layer at the corners and center of a 1 arc minute square field. The AOM includes 3 deformable mirrors conjugate to ranges of 0, 4.5, and 9 kilometers, five laser guide star (LGS) wave front sensors, and three tip/tilt sensors used with natural guide stars (NGS) within a 1 arc minute radius field. Considerations for the LLT and AOM optical designs include (i) optical performance over the stated ranges and fields-of-view, (ii) packaging (iii) optical transmittance and emmissivity, and (iv) fabrication and alignment tolerances. AURA views this optical design work as part of the overall conceptual design effort for the MCAO system; occasional travel to Hilo and Tucson should be expected. The level of effort for the optical design task is expected to be in the range of 250 to 500 hours over a six to nine month period. The feasibility study report for the Gemini-South MCAO system, including an initial optical design for the AOM, is available upon request. Pending approval by the Gemini Board, AURA expects to proceed to detailed design and fabrication of the MCAO system under separate contracts. Persons or firms interested in being considered for this work should fax their CV, hourly rates, and examples of work they have done that is closely related to this work, to 520-318-8590 by no later than 25 February, 2000. Faxes should reference Announcement No. N200243, and be addressed to the Gemini Contracts Manager. MCAO: Adaptive optics systems remove distortions caused by atmospheric turbulence by making corrections to the incoming wavefront using one or multiple bright points of light in the area being observed as references. These reference points can be bright stars, or artificial light sources created by shooting one or multiple lasers at the sky to excite mesospheric sodium atoms located 90 kilometers above the ground. Conventional adaptive optics (AO) systems using a single guide star to drive a single wave front corrector are limited to correcting a small field-of-view due to the three-dimension distribution of atmospheric turbulence. Proposed MCAO systems will employ multiple guide stars to measure this three-dimensional distribution. Multiple deformable mirrors conjugate to distinct ranges can then correct for atmospheric turbulence over a much larger field-of-view. The Gemini Observatory is an international collaboration to build and operate two 8 meter telescopes, one located on Mauna Kea inHawaii, the other on Cerro Pachon in Chile. The Gemini partners include the USA, United Kingdom, Canada, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, and Australia. The Gemini project is operated by AURA under contract to the National Science Foundation. Posted 02/14/00 (W-SN425236). (0045)

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