The SPIRou Cryostat was re-assembled at IRAP/OMP and is undergoing cooling tests The second phase of the spectrograph cryo-mechanics integration is now ongoing at IRAP/OMP (Toulouse, France) with the cryostat cooling tests as part of the acceptance procedure. Following the cryo-mechanics assembly and alignment activities, the primary vacuum pump, the turbo-molecular pump, the cryogenics compressors […]
The spectrograph cryo-mechanics was delivered at IRAP/OMP and is currently under assembly September 2016 marks the completion of a major milestone in the SPIRou project, with the delivery of the spectrograph cryo-mechanics (cryostat and optical bench) from NRC-H in Victoria (Canada) to IRAP/OMP in Toulouse (France). After four days of air and ground travel, the […]
The SPIRou parabola in its mount was shown to have nominal optical performances Integrating the SPIRou parabola in its mount implied bonding and mechanical clamping close to the mirror optical surface, potentially able to induce stresses and deformations, and thus to degrade optical performances. Although both mirror and mount were designed to minimize these effects, […]
The SPIRou off-axis parabola was integrated on its mount at LAM To minimize stresses at cryogenic temperatures, NRC-H designed a custom mount for the SPIRou parabola, with the mirror attached via three Zerodur pucks and one Invar flexure screwed on the mount. The mounting operation consists in (i) bonding three Zerodur pucks to the mirror […]
The silver-coated off-axis parabola was delivered by Thales-SESO The collimator of the SPIRou spectrograph is an off-axis parabola cut from an 880 mm parent and coated with protected sliver. With a curvature radius of 2381 mm and a focal length of 1220 mm, the SPIRou collimator was manufactured and coated by Thales-SESO in Aix-en-Provence (France), and will […]
Unveiling the birth of stars and their planets with SPIRou For the last 20 years the giant planets known as hot Jupiters have presented astronomers with a puzzle. How did they settle into orbits 100 times closer to their host stars than our own Jupiter is to the Sun ? An international team led by […]
Following delivery, the SPIRou calibration module is being tested at IRAP/OMP The SPIRou calibration module was delivered at IRAP/OMP and is currently under integration & tests in our premises. The calibration module is composed of three sections: (i) the calibration unit itself designed and realized by the Observatoire de Haute-Provence (OHP) in southern France, (ii) […]
SPIRou fibers were delivered at IRAP/OMP and are currently under test All SPIRou fibers were delivered at IRAP / OMP and are currently being testing to verify that they meet specifications. The SPIRou fiber link includes 4 separate sections. The first section of the fiber link consists of a box mounted at the output of […]
Most optics of the SPIRou spectrograph were optically controlled at NRC-H Most of the optics of the SPIRou cryogenic spectrograph, i.e. the R2 grating, the Infrasil prism, the twin ZnSe prisms and the folding flat mirror, were inspected and optically controlled at NRC-H, during the visit of Driss Kouach (SPIRou PM at IRAP / OMP), […]