The advanced radio telescope SPIDER 300A has been installed in New Mexico Tech college in Socorro (USA), headquarter of Very Large Array (VLA) radio telescope operated by the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO)! The new SPIDER 300A will be used for research in radio astronomy and for students alike. Astrophysics research at New Mexico Tech encompasses different areas of planetary, stellar and galactic astronomy. The Very Large Array, one of the world’s premier astronomical radio observatories, consists of 27 radio antennas (each antenna is 25 meters in diameter) in a Y-shaped configuration.

Thanks to the SPIDER special design, we shipped from Italy the radio telescope in special boxes that have been delivered directly in installation location. Then PrimaLuceLab team traveled to New Mexico and performed the installation on the concrete base (with conduits for connection cables) designed to keep the SPIDER 300A permanently installed in the field.

Then we installed the H142-One receiver in the control room (distance from radio telescope is 30 meters) and we performed the setup of all the remote control electronics installing the RadioUniversePRO control software in the control computer. Finally we performed a training session introducing the use of the SPIDER 300A radio telescope and RadioUniversePRO software.

New Mexico Tech is now ready to collect radio waves coming from space and start radio astronomy research and outreach with their SPIDER 300A radio telescope, thanks also to the support of PrimaLuceLab team! And at the end we visited the Very Large Array radio telescope too!