Swedish companies attend ELT event in Geneva

At the event, representatives from ESO (European Southern Observatory) gave an overview of the upcoming business opportunities and challenges relating to the construction of six new instruments for the ELT, Extremely Large Telescope, which is under construction in Chile.

The telescope, with a diameter of nearly 39 metres, will be the largest ever built. The location itself, at a height of 3000 metres in tough mountain terrain, brings many challenges.

Participants at the Geneva event heard presentations about the four extremely complex scientific instruments that are in the final design stages, and the two second-generation instruments. Construction of the instruments will involve major projects in which smaller suppliers will need to collaborate with large system integrators.

“Good for Swedish companies to keep up-to-date and make the right contacts”

The Big Science Sweden member companies that attended the event in Geneva, Nyfors, Teledyne and RFR Solutions, appreciated learning more about the new projects, meeting people, and making contacts.

Mike Olsson, Business Development Officer at Big Science Sweden, sees helping Swedish companies with strategic networking as one of his most important tasks. “It’s good for Swedish companies to keep up-to-date and make the right contacts. This will help them get involved in the big projects at an early stage and find collaboration partners.”

Erik Böttcher, Nyfors.

Kacper Matuszynski, Teledyne.

Benny Björkander and Nils Hassel, RFR Solutions.

Sven-Christian Ebenhag, RISE and Big Science Sweden.