PLATO-R: a new concept for Antarctic science

PLATO-R is an autonomous, robotic observatory that can be deployed anywhere on the Antarctic plateau by Twin Otter aircraft. It provides heat, data acquisition, communications, and up to 1 kW of electric power to support astronomical and other experiments throughout the year. PLATO-R was deployed in...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Yael Augarten A, Colin S. Bonner A, Michael G. Burton A, Luke Bycroft A, Jon S. Lawrence B, Daniel M. Luong-van A, Scott Mcdaid A, Campbell Mclaren A, Geoff Sims A, John W. V. Storey A
Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
Format: Text
Language:English
Subjects:
PLATO
PLATO-R
Ridge A
Antarctic astronomy
robotic observatory
Antarctic
Plato
The Antarctic
Antarc*
Online Access:http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.432.2473
http://www.phys.unsw.edu.au/jacara/Papers/pdf/Ashley 2012 (SPIE) - PLATO-R.pdf
Description
Summary:PLATO-R is an autonomous, robotic observatory that can be deployed anywhere on the Antarctic plateau by Twin Otter aircraft. It provides heat, data acquisition, communications, and up to 1 kW of electric power to support astronomical and other experiments throughout the year. PLATO-R was deployed in 2012 January to Ridge A, believed to be the site with the lowest precipitable water vapour (and hence the best atmospheric transmission at terahertz frequencies) on earth. 1–4 PLATO-R improves upon previous PLATO designs that were built into ten-foot shipping containers by being much smaller and lighter, allowing it to be field-deployable within 2–3 days by a crew of four.

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