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The Telescopio San Pedro Martir project intends to build a 6.5 meters telescope with alt-azimuth mount and it has currently finished the preliminary design. The project is an association between Instituto de Astronomia de la Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico and the Instituto Nacional de Astrofisica, Optica Electronica in partnership with the University of Arizona and the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory. The telescope preliminary design this is lead and developed at Queretaro by the Centro de Ingenieria y Desarrollo Industrial. An overview of the preliminary design and the structural design updates are summarized in this paper.

Telescopio San Pedro Martir (TSPM) project intends to build a 6.5 meters telescope with alt-azimuth design, currently at the conceptual design. The project is an association between Instituto de Astronomia de la Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico (IA-UNAM) and the Instituto Nacional de Astrofisica, Optica Electronica (INAOE) in partnership with department of Astronomy and Steward Observatory of University of Arizona and Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory of Harvard University. Conceptual design of the telescope is lead and developed by the Centro de Ingenieria y Desarrollo Industrial (CIDESI). An overview of the feasibility study and the structural conceptual design are summarized in this paper. The telescope concept is based on telescopes already commissioned such as MMT and the Baade and Clay Magellan telescopes, building up on these proven concepts. The main differences relative to the Magellan pair are; the elevation axis is located 1 meter above the primary mirror vertex, allowing for a similar field of view at the Cassegrain and both Nasmyth focal stations; instead of using a vane ends to position the secondary mirror TSPM considers an Steward platform like MMT; finally TSPM has a larger floor distance to m1 cell than Magellans and MMT. Initially TSPM will operate with an f/5 Cassegrain station, but the design considers further Nasmyth configurations from a Cassegrain f/5 up to a Gregorian f/11. The telescope design includes 7 focal stations: 1 Cassegrain; 2 Nasmyth; and 4 folded-Cassegrain. The telescope will be designed and manufactured in Mexico, will be design in Queretaro by CIDESI and built between Queretaro and Michoacan manufacturing facilities; it will be preassembled in these facilities and disassembled to send it to the San Pedro Martir Observatory for final integration. The azimuth and altitude structure is planned to be constructed in modules and transported by truck and shipped to Ensenada and finally to the OAN where is going to be finally assembled, verified and tested.

FRIDA (inFRared Imager and Dissector for the Adaptive optics system of the Gran Telescopio Canarias (GTC)) is designed as a diffraction limited instrument that will offer broad and narrow band imaging and integral field spectroscopy capabilities with low, intermediate and high (R ~ 30,000) spectral resolutions, to operate in the wavelength range 0.9 – 2.5 μm. The integral field unit is based on a monolithic image slicer and the imaging and IFS observing modes will use the same Teledyne 2Kx2K detector. FRIDA will be based on a Nasmyth B of GTC, behind the adaptive optics (AO) system. The key scientific objectives of the instrument include studies of solar system bodies, low mass objects, circumstellar outflow phenomena in advanced stages of stellar evolution, active galactic nuclei high redshift galaxies, including resolved stellar populations, semidetached binary systems, young stellar objects and star forming environments. FRIDA subsystems are presently being manufactured and tested. In this paper we present the challenges to perform the verification of some critical specifications of a cryogenic and diffraction limited NIR instrument as FRIDA. FRIDA is a collaborative project between the main GTC partners, namely, Spain, Mexico and Florida.

FRIDA has been conceived as the first science instrument for the adaptive optics system of the Gran Telescopio Canarias (GTC). It is designed to be installed at the Nasmyth A platform, behind the GTC adaptive optics system. FRIDA will be a diffraction limited, near infrared imager and integral field spectrograph sensitive from 0.9 to 2.5 μm. It may also include provisions for future upgrades such as coronographic masks and long slits. FRIDA is a collaborative project between the Instituto de Astronomia, UNAM, Mexico, the Instituto de Astrofisica de Canarias, Spain, and the Astronomy Department of the University of Florida, USA.

FRIDA (inFRared Imager and Dissector for the Adaptive optics system of the Gran Telescopio Canarias) has been designed as a cryogenic and diffraction limited instrument that will offer broad and narrow band imaging and integral field spectroscopy (IFS). Both, the imaging mode and IFS observing modes will use the same Teledyne 2Kx2K detector. This instrument will be installed at Nasmyth B station, behind the GTC Adaptive Optics system. FRIDA will provide the IFS mode using a 30 slices Integral Field Unit (IFU). This IFU design is based on University of Florida FISICA where the mirror block arrays are diamond turned on monolithic metal blocks. FRIDA IFU is conformed mainly by 3 mirror blocks with 30 spherical mirrors each. It also has a Schwarzschild relay based on two off axis spherical mirrors and an afocal system of two parabolic off axis mirrors. Including two insertion mirrors the IFU holds 96 metal mirrors. Each block or individual mirror is attached on its own mechanical mounting. In order to study beam interferences with mechanical parts, ghosts and scattered light, an iterative optical-mechanical modeling was developed. In this work this iterative modeling is described including pictures showing actual ray tracing on the opto-mechanical components.

FRIDA (inFRared Imager and Dissector for the Adaptive optics system of the Gran Telescopio Canarias) has been designed as a diffraction limited instrument that will offer broad and narrow band imaging and integral field spectroscopy (IFS) capabilities with low, intermediate and high spectral resolutions to operate in the wavelength range 0.9 - 2.5 μm. The integral field unit is based on a monolithic image slicer and the imaging and IFS observing modes will use the same Rockwell 2Kx2K detector. FRIDA will be based at a Nasmyth focus of GTC, behind the AO system. The main design characteristics of FRIDA are described in this contribution. FRIDA is a collaborative project between the main GTC partners, namely, Spain, Mexico and Florida, lead by UNAM.

In March 2004 was accepted in the site of Gran Telescopio Canarias (GTC) in La Palma Island, Spain, the Commissioning Instrument (CI) for the GTC. During the GTC integration phase, the CI will be a diagnostic tool for performance verification. The CI features four operation modes-imaging, pupil imaging, Curvature Wave-front sensing (WFS), and high resolution Shack-Hartmann WFS. This instrument was built by the Instituto de Astronomia UNAM in Mexico City and the Centro de Ingenieria y Desarrollo Industrial (CIDESI) in Queretaro, Qro under a GRANTECAN contract after an international public bid. Some optical components were built by Centro de Investigaciones en Optica (CIO) in Leon Gto and the biggest mechanical parts were manufactured by Vatech in Morelia Mich. In this paper we made a general description of the CI and we relate how this instrument, build under international standards, was entirely made in Mexico.

Under a contract with the GRANTECAN, the Commissioning Instrument (CI) is a project developed by a team of Mexican scientists and engineers from the Instrumentation Department of the Astronomy Institute at the UNAM and the CIDESI Engineering Center. The CI will verify the Gran Telescopio Canarias (GTC) performance during the commissioning phase between First Light and Day One. The design phase is now completed and the project is currently in the manufacturing phase. The CI main goal is to measure the telescope image quality. To obtain a stable high resolution image, the mechanical structures should be as rigid as possible. This paper describes the several steps of the conceptual design and the Finite Element Analysis (FEA) for the CI mechanical structures. A variety of models were proposed. The FEA was useful to evaluate the displacements, shape modes, weight, and thermal expansions of each model. A set of indicators were compared with decision matrixes. The best performance models were subjected to a re-optimization stage. By applying the same decision method, a CI Structure Model was proposed. The FEA results complied with all the instruments specifications. Displacements values and vibration frequencies are reported.

This paper describes both the electronics design (ED) and the acceptance control system (ACS) of the Commissioning Instrument (CI) for the Gran Telescopio Canarias (GTC). The CI mainly comprises ten mechanisms accurately positioned by control algorithms, which in turn are programmed according to the CI operation modes. The control system is based on a CANopen protocol and is completely compatible with the GTC control system. CANopen is a serial communication protocol based on CAN bus. The CANopen features allow for the control system high reliability. A Reliability, Availability, Maintainability, and Safety (RAMS) analysis was carried out to guarantee the CI opto-mechanics and electronics performance.

Under a contract with the GRANTECAN, the Commissioning Instrument is a project developed by a team of Mexican scientists and engineers from the Instrumentation Department of the Astronomy Institute at the UNAM and the CIDESI Engineering Center. This paper will discuss in some detail the final Commissioning Instrument (CI) mechanical design and fabrication. We will also explain the error budget and the barrels design as well as their thermal compensation. The optical design and the control system are discussed in other papers. The CI will just act as a diagnostic tool for image quality verification during the GTC Commissioning Phase. This phase is a quality control process for achieving, verifying, and documenting the performance of each GTC sub-systems. This is a very important step for the telescope life. It will begin on starting day and will last for a year. The CI project started in December 2000. The critical design phase was reviewed in July 2001. The CI manufacturing is currently in progress and most parts are finished. We are now approaching the factory acceptance stage.