The GJW-CL observatory is in Chile like 70% of the world’s astronomical infrastructure. Its location boasts 95% clear skies for observing.
Rugged Infrastructure, Globally Coordinated
Intricate and well designed system engineering make for resilience in round-the-clock observing. All components in the observatory are switchable remotely, over the internet, both for their electricity and their signal transmission. This is an essential pre-requisite for robotic round-the-clock operations.
Even the control of the observatories themselves is robotic: their shutters open and close at a command from the other side of the planet, and they rotate so that their opening is always aligned with where the telescope wants to look. The telescopes can acquire their targets within 60 seconds.
The Observatories in South Africa and India are powered by custom solar farms to be resilient to challenges in local infrastructure. The solar farms harvest light from our nearest star by day so we can observe more distant stars by night!