PLATO-R: a new concept for Antarctic science

Abstract

PLATO-R is an autonomous, robotic observatory that can be deployed anywhere on the Antarctic plateau by Twin Otter aircraft. It provides heat, data acquisition, communications, and up to 1 kW of electric power to support astronomical and other experiments throughout the year. PLATO-R was deployed in 2012 January to Ridge A, believed to be the site with the lowest precipitable water vapour (and hence the best atmospheric transmission at terahertz frequencies) on earth. [1][2][3][4] PLATO-R improves upon previous PLATO designs that were built into ten-foot shipping containers by being much smaller and lighter, allowing it to be field-deployable within 2-3 days by a crew of four.

Extended Carbon Line Emission in the Galaxy: Searching for Dark Molecular Gas Along the G328 Sightline

“…C and C + are, however, virtually unobservable from all but the driest sites on the surface of our planet. We have established a new observatory at Ridge A, near the summit of the Antarctic plateau, to open up the terahertz spectrum for observation in order to obtain the wide-field, high resolution images of the carbon lines needed to pursue this science (Ashley et al 2012;Kulesa et al 2013). The measurement of the key diagnostic lines from all these species in the atomic and molecular phases of interstellar medium we call "following the galactic carbon trail.…”

Astronomy From the High Antarctic Plateau

“…It observes through the technique of driftscanning, using the Earth's rotation and adjusting the angle of the mirror to build up an image of the source as it passes through the beam. The telescope is controlled using the Australian built PLATO autonomous laboratory (PLATO-R; see Ashley et al (2012); see Fig. 4), which is analogous to a spacecraft bus and through which HEAT derives power and communications.…”