CEDAR email: Arecibo Observatory- ISR Update

[Francisco Cordova]

Dear Radar Community,

We wanted to take this opportunity to send an update on the Arecibo Observatory facilities and status of the Incoherent Scatter Radar. As you probably know, Puerto Rico has been impacted by a series of earthquakes that started on December 28th, and continue to this day. Luckily our staff is safe, and the facility has not suffered any significant damage at this point. We have however, as a precaution, suspended scientific observations until we have the ability to perform full inspections of the platform and the towers at AO. With the high number of repeated earthquakes and aftershocks it has not been possible to climb the structure yet. We are hopeful that the tremors will stop soon, and that our inspections will result in no significant findings of damage to the telescope or radar structure.

The Arecibo ISR has also been impacted recently by some technical troubles, and its operations are currently suspended due to a failure in its aged modulator. Our technical teams are working hard to restore operational capability, but we don't have a clear timeline on when the operations of the ISR will be restored.  The good news is that we have been able to move the solid state modulator that was part of the Sondrestrom radar to the Arecibo facility. We would like to thank NSF for their willingness to send this piece of equipment to Arecibo. We plan on installing this modulator, which is significantly more modern that the current Arecibo modulator as soon as possible. We are already working with several contractors to determine the best approach to complete the installation and minimize down time of the equipment. That being said, the AO ISR will not be online for this observing semester; once we have a clear timeline to restore operational capability we will share again with the community.

As always we appreciate your support and engagement. I hope this new year brings renewed strength and focus to our ISR community.

Regards,


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Francisco Córdova
Director - Arecibo Observatory
University of Central Florida
787-878-2612 ext. 212
Francisco.Cordova at ucf.edu<mailto:Francisco.Cordova at ucf.edu>
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HC 03 Box 53995 Arecibo, PR 00612
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