2018 On April 26, the first camera of the Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA) project departed from the CIEMAT to the IFAE (Barcelona). From the IFAE, it will depart to the observatory of Roque de Los Muchachos (La Palma, Spain) in July 2018.

This camera has been designed by an international consortium with a large presence of Spanish institutions, among them the CIEMAT, the IFAE, the IAC, the Complutense University of Madrid and the ICCUB.

The CIEMAT is responsible for the design, construction and assembly of mechanics, the environmental control system and the electronic system for the distribution of trigger and clock signals of this instrument. These activities have taken place with the participation of the Basic Research Department as well as the Technology Department. In addition, the CIEMAT has coordinated the installation and testing of auxiliary systems provided by other institutions, such as the power distribution system (IFAE), the trigger signal interface system (Complutense University of Madrid), and the control computer provided by the LAPP (France).

The camera has been received at the IFAE, where the front acquisition modules will be installed. In addition, tests on the control software and the firing and acquisition electronics will be carried out in the IFAE with the CIEMAT collaboration. After these tests, the camera will be sent to the Roque de Los Muchachos observatory in La Palma, where the CIEMAT will coordinate its installation in the structure of the telescope.

2017 The latest iteration of the Cherenkov Telescope Array’s (CTA’s) science case, Science with the Cherenkov Telescope Array, was made available today via the CTA website library and arXiv and will be published as a book by World Scientific. The work includes more than 200 pages that introduce and elaborate on CTA’s major science themes and place CTA in the context of other major observatories.

2016 Latest elements of the bogies of the first LST telescop of CTA, produced at CIEMAT,  have been shipped to IFAE in Barcelona, closing one important milestone of the LST production.

35 front-ent electronics modules delivered by ICRR in Tokyo have been received at CIEMAT 1st of August. These modules will be used to test the mechanics and electronics for the camera of the first Large Size Telescope under production at CIEMAT. The test will take place during September, with the collaboration of personnel of ICRR (Tokyo), IFAE (Barcelona) and UCM (Madrid) and the coordination of CIEMAT.

The group of CIEMAT participated in the biannual meeting of the LST working group of CTA in La Palma island from July 25th to 29th. The latest status of the developments and production procedures carried out by CIEMAT was reported to the collaboration.

In April 2016 the Secretary of State for R&D (Carmen Vela) together with the Deputy Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Japanese Technology (Tsutomu Tomioka) chaired the signing of the agreement for the installation and operation of the four Cherenkov telescopes at the Roque de los Muchachos Observatory on the island of La Palma. The construction plan of these four telescopes has been endorsed by the CTA collaboration at the last meeting in Kashiwa (Tokyo) on 19 and 20 May. The construction of the infrastructure for the first telescope in La Palma has been started.