Spanish Industry Day at ESO

On 9 April 2015, ESO will host an industry event for Spanish businesses at its headquarters in Garching, Germany. At the meeting, representatives of interested Spanish companies and institutions will be offered information about ESO, given an introduction to the European Extremely Large Telescope (E-ELT) and presented with the potential opportunities that are available to take part in its industrial activities.

Astronomy in Spain has a long history, dating as far back as the year 800, to Al-Andalus, or Islamic Iberia, where Indian, Mesopotamian, Persian, Greek and Roman knowledge was all absorbed by early Muslim astronomers, such as Al-Faraghani — whose calculations of the Earth’s circumference were used by Columbus.

Astronomy in the country saw a big leap forward more recently, in the late 1970s, when Spain began to develop as a nation invested in modern astronomy. International agreements promoting the use of observatories in the Canary Islands were established and Spain is a founding member of the European Space Agency (ESA).

Spain joined ESO in 2006 (eso0605) and confirmed that their country will participate in the E-ELT programme (ann14044) on 3 June 2014.

During this meeting, ESO’s Director of Programmes, Adrian Russell, will introduce ESO to the representatives of Spanish companies. Interested companies will have the opportunity to familiarise themselves with the technological requirements of the organisation, as well as its procurement procedures. There will also be time reserved for one-on-one meetings between the respective representatives.

This industry day is being organised by ESO in close cooperation with the Spanish Industrial Liaison Officer.

More Information

• Companies will be responsible for making their own travel arrangements.
• ESO will make a pre-booking of hotel rooms. Companies will need to confirm bookings.

Courtesy of European Southern Observatory