Phase 2: Construction

Construction Phase Summary

The goals of the Construction Phase are to:

• Build the telescope system.
• Prepare procurement documentation that adequately specifies acceptance testing.
• Take delivery of the telescope system and conduct final acceptance testing.

Award of Contracts and Purchase Orders

After the procurement decisions have been approved and the decision made to proceed with the project, the project enters the Construction Phase and the Project Manager will award contracts and purchase orders for the components of the telescope system. The Systems Engineer will act on behalf of the project as overall systems integrator, responsible for bringing the telescope system components together and making them work together as a system. All major decisions regarding the award of contracts and other matters will be with the approval of the partners and the Winer Boards, in accordance with any partnership agreement.

Design Review

About six months after award of contracts, Winer will hold a Design Review meeting. All vendors of major telescope system components will be required by their contracts to present their designs at this meeting. The audience will include the project management and engineering team, all signatories to a partnership agreement, the Winer Board of Directors, and the Science Advisory Committee (which contains representatives of all partners). If the Project Scientist deems it necessary, a Design Review Committee composed of telescope, instrumentation, NEO, and other experts from outside the project will be invited to review the overall requirements and system design and to recommend changes if needed. The Special Project Advisors will be notified of the meeting and issued a pro forma invitation with the understanding that they have a busy schedule and may not have the time to attend.

Acceptance Test Plans and Procedures

While the telescope system components are being manufactured, each vendor will write an Acceptance Test Plan and Procedures (ATP) for their component based on the Procurement Specifications in their contract or purchase order. The Project Scientist, Project Manager, and System Engineer will review the ATP based on the Procurement Specifications and the Functional and Performance Requirements Document (FPRD).

The purpose of the ATP is to test what the vendors build and deliver to ensure that it meets the specifications in the contract or purchase order before accepting the product or service and making the final payment for it. The vendors write the plans because they are most familiar with their product and know best how to test it. Furthermore, they typically have already developed test procedures, techniques, and fixtures that can be used to save money.

The plans will consist of a Pre-shipment Acceptance Test to be performed in the vendor's plant before the telescope or imager is shipped, and a Final Acceptance Test to be performed at the delivery site before final payment is made to the vendor. The purpose of the pre-shipment testing is, as much as possible, to test the component at the vendor's facility, where modifications can be most easily made to bring the product into conformance with the Procurement Specifications. However, some requirements cannot be tested at the vendor's facility, and must be tested at the observatory site. These requirement tests are part of the Final Acceptance Test.

The vendor-written ATP's will be reviewed by the Project Manager, the Project Scientist, and the Systems Engineer, and, if needed, by one or more members of the SAC. Vendor contracts will contain clauses to permit Winer to demand changes to the ATP's to bring them into compliance with the Procurement Specifications and the FPRD.

Pre-shipment Acceptance Testing

As each vendor completes their portion of the fabrication work, they will notify Winer that they are ready to perform the Pre-shipment Acceptance Test. Winer will send one or more representatives to witness the pre-shipment acceptance testing. The Optical Designer will send or recommend an optical technician to send to the optical vendors to test their products before they are coated. Both the vendor and Winer representatives will sign the ATP when tests are completed successfully. When all tests are passed, the vendor may ship its product, but not before.

Final Acceptance Testing

Final Acceptance Testing will be done after each vendor delivers its product to the Winer facility and completes installation. Some tests may be performed on individual components, but most of the testing will need to wait until the telescope system is completely assembled and integrated. As each section is completed successfully, both vendor and Winer representatives will sign the ATP.

Update the Error Budgets

As each vendor delivers its product(s), the Systems Engineer will use the measurements of the product's key characteristics from the pre-shipment testing to update the appropriate error budget with as-built measurements. He will use the updated error budgets to predict subsystem and overall telescope system performance. He will notify the Project Manager and the Project Scientist of the results, and they will decide if any components need to be remanufactured to bring the entire system back into compliance with specifications. This process will continue into the Commissioning Phase.

The results of the acceptance testing and the error budget updates will be reported to the Winer Board of Directors, and the SAC. At this phase of the project, the SAC will be disbanded and the members thanked for their service. If the members desire, we will be pleased to keep them informed of progress in Commissioning and Operations, and they would be most welcome to visit the Winer facility at any time to see the telescope in action.