Maunakea Access

Instrument PI Andy Shearer (left, NUI Galway), with colleagues Nicholas Devaney (center, NUI Galway) and Christian Gouiffès (right, CEA Saclay) checking GASP before installation at Gemini South

Since July 15th, the Maunakea Access Road has been blocked by protestors seeking to prevent TMT construction equipment from moving to the Maunakea Astronomy Precinct. By the 16th it was clear that no observatory had safe or reliable access to the summit, and the observatories took the collective decision to bring all our staff down and not return until that changed. This is the longest interruption of operations for the MK Observatories in the 50-year history of astronomy on the mountain.

One week after the situation started, Gemini North had planned to go into a maintenance shutdown; in total eight nights of observing were lost, seven of which were clear. We are now in Semester 2019B. The first major milestone in the semester is a visiting instrument run (TEXES, starting around September 11th). That run supports a number of highly-ranked science programs and cannot be moved due to target distribution. To protect that run, and to minimize the impact on 2019B as a whole, we decided that the primary mirror will not be coated this year as originally planned. This shortens the shutdown to two weeks. The rest of the work cannot be skipped; a key activity is the replacement of helium hoses in the Cassegrain wrap. 

On August 12th, having received assurances of support from Law Enforcement and statements from the protestors of their intent not to block access for staff of the existing observatories, and with some improvements made to the side road via which we now have to access, we returned to the mountain. We are now engaged in the planned maintenance work and will soon post a schedule for Gemini North’s return to night-sky observing.