The VIRMOS integration facility at OHP

Picture taken on 22 December 1998 showing the internal framework.

Picture taken on 4 January 1999 showing the inner shell.

Picture of the almost-finished building taken on 29 March 1999.

The pictures show the VIRMOS Integration Facility at different states during its construction. This building, to be completed by the end of April 1999, consists of a first room aimed at receiving and unloading the truck (entrance to the left), a second room dedicated to the instrument integration operation control room, a small room for the small subsystems assembly operations, and four offices for the VIRMOS consortium teams.

The first operations to take place in the building are the VLT VIMOS (VIRMOS Visible Instrument) integration, scheduled to start in May 1999 and to end in November 1999 with the Preliminary Acceptance Tests in Europe. Afterwards, the instrument will be partially disassembled and shipped to the Paranal site.

The VLT VIRMOS Infra Red Instrument (NIRMOS), will follow the same process one year later.