What are the technology challenges and scale of effort?
The realization of the LSST involves extraordinary engineering and technological challenges: the fabrication of large, high-precision aspheric optics; construction of a huge, highly-integrated array of sensitive, wide-band imaging sensors; and the operation of a data management facility handling tens of terabytes of data each day. The design and development effort includes structural, thermal, and optical analyses of all key hardware subsystems, vendor interactions to determine manufacturability, explicit prototyping of high-risk elements, prototyping and development of data management systems, and extensive systems engineering studies. To validate system performance, full end-to-end simulations are being done. Over 100 technical personnel at a range of institutions are currently engaged in this program.
