Broken Cable Damages Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico
ARECIBO, PR (University of Central Florida PR) — One of the auxiliary cables that helps support a metal platform in place above the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico, broke on Monday (Aug. 10) causing a 100-foot-long gash on the telescope’s reflector dish. Operations at the UCF-managed observatory are stopped until repairs can be made.
The break occurred about 2:45 a.m. When the three-inch cable fell it also damaged about 6-8 panels in the Gregorian Dome and twisted the platform used to access the dome. It is not yet clear what caused the cable to break.
“We have a team of experts assessing the situation,” says Francisco Cordova, the director of the observatory. “Our focus is assuring the safety of our staff, protecting the facilities and equipment, and restoring the facility to full operations as soon as possible, so it can continue to assist scientists around the world.”
UCF manages the NSF-facility under a cooperative agreement with Universidad Ana G. Méndez and Yang Enterprises Inc. The facility, which is home to one of the most powerful telescopes on the planet, is used by scientists around the world to conduct research in the areas of atmospheric sciences, planetary sciences, radio astronomy and radar astronomy.
Arecibo is also home to a team that runs the Planetary Radar Project supported by NASA’s Near-Earth Object Observations Program in NASA’s Planetary Defense Coordination Office through a grant awarded to UCF.
The facility has endured many hurricanes, tropical storms and earthquakes since it was built 50 years ago. Repairs from Hurricane Maria in 2017 are ongoing. Through it all, the facility has continued to contribute to significant breakthroughs in space research in the area of gravitational waves, asteroid characterization, planetary exploration and more.
13 responses to “Broken Cable Damages Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico”
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no money for maintenance
Nobody ever want’s to pay for upkeep. I heard the new Chinese super dish is already suffering from an assault on the upkeep for the facility. Humans. Then again, I guess I’m guilty of it too. I’ve spent a fair amount of my extended at home time catching up on car maintenance, and house projects that have been waiting for a long time. One of my milling machines has been running on circuit boards from 1979 and the excellent quality of design and implementation of the Brdgeport/Textron corporation has rewarded my years of procrastination with a system that still works.
in 1934 the CAA the precursor to the FAA built a LF/MF range in south houston to allow the airport (what became hobby) to have instrument approaches and part of the “blue” airway system. My Great Grandfather worked a deal with them, the state etc that would allow them to build the thing on then “his” farm and yet maintain theh near sovereignty of the farm (it is a Republic farm in Texas) . The CAA would maintain the system and when it decommissioned the “facilities in total” reverted to the Republic farm. They did this again in WW2 with the “auxillary airstrip” that the USAAC needed.
so in I think 1970 they decommissioned the site and well we got all the stuff. that included 5 towers, some buildings etc. it turned out to make a really nice 160meter LF array and my Grandfather loved it. the towers are all about 140 feet tall, guyed so they need continual maintenance.
we have done that. 10 years ago I decided to have a company come in and “really look them over”. they needed to be stripped of paint, then inspected and finally chromated and repainted. there was guy wire work needed…they didnt have a lot of concrete in 1933 so they drove 20 foot telephone polls into the ground which theyused as dead man anchors. they were still in pretty good shape but we have concrete today
anyway by the time it was over the company doing the inspecting told me “it would not be that much more expensive to put up new towers” but of course those would not be 80 years old, have the CAA and FRC and NRA logo all over them. 6 months latter they are darn near brand new…and good well to 2130 with routine maintenance inshallah.
I have one of the best 160 meter arrays in the world 🙂 upkeep is expensive.
Bravo for keeping the hardware intact. No doubt you’re using it for your amateur radio work. What looks like a small satellite downlink station is being parted out for free on Craigslist here in Tucson. Some really nice 2 and 3 m dishes with excellent mounts are free for the taking. Wish I had the time and the operational pickup truck (under restoration) to go pick it up. It would make a nice addition to the remote observatory I’m going to put in near Bisbee in a few years after I ‘retire’.
oh super sigh. they would be perfect for a task I have 🙂
Bisbee rocks…chased a doper there many decades ago
the array burns up the ether pretty well. I’ve added a couple of long wire antennas about 10 feet off the ground and about 2000 feet long pointed in the “continent” directions…for RX…the noise level on 160 is high
different topic…what do you think about the proposed far side lunar low frequency radio observatory>
I hope the contractor on the Chinese Big Ear isn’t the same outfit that built the Three Gorges Dam.
Diverted funds, more likely, Bob. Stay safe, Paul.
no doubt…but sad
Looks like the cover art for the type of sci-fi books I used to read in the 80’s.
Yes, it is 2020…
Or like Andre Norton books I used to read in the 60s.
Necessary maintenance has been put off, put off, put off and then, crash. They didn’t spend the ounce upon prevention, now they have to spend the pound upon cure. A typical scenario of deferred maintenance right around the Globe. Very predictable, very sad.