PI: Alexandre Cabral

IA participates in the scientific and technical development of Astronomical Instrumentation and dedicated observation Surveys, which transverses both major scientific areas in IA. The development of new instrumentation is important to secure privileged access to existing and future facilities of the European Organisation for Astronomical Research in the Southern Hemisphere (ESO) and of the European Space Agency (ESA). The participation of IA in large observation Surveys is also important to give direct access to the available data in first hand. Both the involvement in instruments or in large Surveys contribute to the long term development of Astronomy in Portugal.

IA as an institution and several IA members have been involved in the scientific definition of astronomical instrumentation and several projects that are already running in collaboration with other Portuguese teams. The list below includes the ongoing projects for which the participation of IA is done at the highest level (e.g. as Co-PIs or with representatives in the Board membership). These projects also include a strong scientific participation and responsibilities in the development of software and hardware packages.

Space projects

• PLATO 2.0 (ESA, 2024)
  Contact at IA: Nuno C. Santos
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• CHEOPS (ESA, 2017)
  Contact at IA: Nuno C. Santos & Sérgio A. G. Sousa
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• Euclid (ESA, 2020)
  Contact at IA: António C. da Silva
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• ESA-eLISA (ESA)
  >> See more

Ground telescopes and instrumentation

• ESPRESSO (ESO, 2016)
  Contact at IA: Nuno C. Santos
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• MOONS (ESO, 2019)
  Contact at IA: José Afonso
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• ELT (ESO)
  >> See more

To the list above we should add that IA is also strongly involved in other instrumentation projects. IA is also strongly involved in the SPIRou consortium (new NIR spectrograph for the CFHT telescope), the definition of MOSAIC (ESO/ELT), and has a leading role in the definition of the HIRES (ESO/ELT) and NIRPS (ESO/NTT) projects and consortia.