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Huge truck ready for mission

31/07/07 – A massive truck with 28-wheels that will be used to set up a telescope array in the Chilean Andes has come through tests that prove its competency. The huge truck will transport antennas that weigh 115 tonnes up a mountainside plateau, 5,000m above sea level.
The truck is 130 tonnes has as much power as two Formula 1 engines and is 10m wide, 20m long and 6m high.

The testing was carried out by the firm Scheuerle Fahrzeugfabrik near Nuremberg in Germany.

The tests were very stringent with the entire mechanism being tested using dummy weights additionally the independent steering of the wheels was also tested.

In order to pass the trials engineers checked the ability of the transporter to pick up and set down the antennas.

Adrian Russell, Alma project manager for North America told the BBC: "As it picks up the antenna, the transporter puts its arms under the armpits of the antenna, lifts it up and pulls it slowly up a ramp. It gradually lifts the antenna higher and higher and eventually pulls it right into the vehicle.

"When it gets to where the antenna is being relocated, the antenna very slowly and carefully slides back down the ramp so it is overhanging the edge of the vehicle."

They are being moved to help establish the Alma telescope which will allow Astronomers to see one half of the Universe that has previously been in darkness.

Alma stands for the Atacama Large Millimeter Array and it will be completed in 2012 at a cost of £470m.

The array will be give views of the first galaxies that formed following the Big Bang, and will also provide a view of planets forming around young stars.

It will initially be made up of 66 high-precision antennas each measuring 12m across and are designed with a surface accurate to within 20 microns (millionths of a metre).

Alma will provide telescopes with an accuracy that is up to ten times better than the Hubble Space Telescope.

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<a href="http://www.pulsewebhosting.com/news/huge-truck-ready-for-mission/131/" title="Huge truck ready for mission">Huge truck ready for mission</a> Published Date: 2007-07-31 14:10:37

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