Performance of the autonomous PLATO Antarctic Observatory over two full years

For continuous observation at locations that are inhospitable for humans, the desirability of autonomous observatories is self evident. PLATO, the 'PLATeau Observatory' was designed to host an easily configurable instrument suite in the extremely cold conditions on the Antarctic plateau, a...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:SPIE Proceedings, Ground-based and Airborne Telescopes III
Main Authors: Luong-Van, Daniel M., Ashley, Michael C B, Cui, Xiangqun, Everett, Jon R., Feng, Longlong, Gong, Xuefei, Hengst, Shane, Lawrence, Jon S., Storey, John W V, Wang, Lifan, Yang, Huigen, Yang, Ji, Zhou, Xu, Zhu, Zhengxi
Other Authors: Stepp, Larry M., Gilmozzi, Roberto, Hall, Helen J.
Format: Other Non-Article Part of Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Published: SPIE 2010
Subjects:
Antarctic
The Antarctic
Plato
Antarc*
Online Access:https://researchers.mq.edu.au/en/publications/00a59b7b-6929-425e-9b42-124bd14e3ada
https://doi.org/10.1117/12.857910
https://research-management.mq.edu.au/ws/files/62347587/Publisher%20version%20(open%20access).pdf
http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=77958139432&partnerID=8YFLogxK
Description
Summary:For continuous observation at locations that are inhospitable for humans, the desirability of autonomous observatories is self evident. PLATO, the 'PLATeau Observatory' was designed to host an easily configurable instrument suite in the extremely cold conditions on the Antarctic plateau, and can provide up to 1 kW of power for the instruments. Powered by jet fuel and the Sun, PLATO and its instruments have been taking nearly uninterrupted astronomical science and site-testing data at Dome A, the coldest, highest and driest location 1 on the Antarctic Plateau, since their deployment by the 24th Chinese expedition team in January 2008. At the time of writing, PLATO has delivered a total uptime of 730 days. Following a servicing mission by the 25th Chinese expedition team in 2008-9, PLATO has achieved 100% up-time (520 days) and has been in continuous contact with the rest of the world via its Iridium satellite modems. This paper discusses the performance of the observatory itself, assesses the sources of energy and dissects how the energy is divided between the core observatory functions of instrument power, heating, control and communication.

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