Organization and personnel

Organization

The Instituto de Astronomía de la Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (IA-UNAM) leads the scientific and technical part of the project.

The design and construction is carried out in collaboration with the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC, Spain), el Centro de Ingeniería y Desarrollo Industrial (CIDESI, Mexico), University of Florida (UF, USA) y la Universidad Complutense de Madrid (UCM, Spain)

El IA-UNAM is responsible for:

  • The management and coordination of the scientific group and engineering teams.
  • The complete optical design.
  • The acquisition and fabrication of the refractive optical elements and mirrors with the exception of the IFU.
  • The assembly, integration and verification (AIV) of the instrument, coordinating these activities with all the groups.
  • The control tasks of the mechanisms, low level hardware and software, wiring and electronics for the management and monitoring of all temperature and pressure sensors of the instrument

    • El IAC is responsible for:

  • Develop of the high-level FRIDA control system and everything concerning the detector.
  • Develop the high-level software for the control mechanisms.
  • Develop of the system that determines the sequence of interaction between the telescope, the adaptive optics system and the instrument itself, as well as the user interface for the observer.

    • El CIDESI is responsible for:

  • Develop all packages related to the design and manufacturing of mechanical parts (cryostat, mechanisms, chamber barrels, support structure, support and test tools, etc.)

    • La UF is responsible for:

  • Develop the manufacture, assembly and testing of the integral field unit (IFU) and the complete development of the focusing mechanism.

    • La UCM is responsible for:

  • Performance the pre-processing, filtering and storage of the data to be obtained by FRIDA

    • Personal

    FRIDA and the UNAM engineering team

    MANNAGEMENT

      Project Manager
      Beatriz Sánchez (UNAM)

      SCIENTIFIC TEAM

      Principal Investigator
      Alan Watson (UNAM)

      Co-Investigadors
      José Alberto López (UNAM)
      Almudena Prieto (IAC)
      Francisco Garzón (IAC)
      Peter Hammersley (IAC)
      Steve Eikenberry (UF)
      Nicolás Cardiel
      José A. Acosta (IAC) (UCM)

      Associates
      Jesús Gallego (UCM)

    ENGINEERING TEAM

      UNAM
      Salvador Cuevas (Head of Optics)
      Luis Carlos Álvarez (Optics)
      Oscar Chapa (Optics)
      Rubén Flores (Head of Control)
      Leonardo Garcés (Control)
      Gerardo Lara (Control)
      Carolina Keiman (Head of AIV)
      Carlos Espejo (AIV)
      Beatriz Sánchez (Project Management)

      IAC
      Jesús Patrón (Group Management IAC)
      Enrique Joven (detector)
      Enol Mantilla (Ing. software)

      UF
      Steve Eikenberry (Head of IFU & Focus Mechanism)

      UCM
      Nicolás Cardiel

      CIDESI
      Berenice Rodríguez (Head of Mechanics)
      Eleazar Sánchez (Mechanics)
      Refugio Fugarte (Mechanics)
      Carlos Ortega (Mechanics)

    Agradecimientos

    We thank Grupo Santander (Spain) through Encuentros Astrofísicos Blas Cabrera (UNAM-IAC) and the Instituto de Astronomía de la UNAM for their support. Part of this project has been carried out with funding from PAPITT-UNAM (IT116311), CONACYT (INFR-2009-01-122664) and CONACYT Fronteras de la Ciencia 2015-1-226.