munich

High hopes: the Roque de los Muchados on La Palma where IAC's 10-m optical telescope will be built Credit: IAC

The Spanish government has pledged to fund fully a 10-metre optical telescope in the Canary Islands — the first large-scale research facility Spain has ever approved — even if no international partners are found.

The decision puts an end to widespread fears in Spain that the government's refusal to make a commitment would delay the project for so long that it would no longer be an internationally competitive facility.

The telescope will be built on Roque de los Muchachos on the island of La Palma, one of two sites belonging to the Institute of Astrophysics of the Canaries (IAC). First light is planned for 2002, and the design will be based on the segmented-mirror structure of the Keck telescope in Hawaii.

After years of lobbying from the IAC, the government last year agreed to pay half the telescope's cost of US$100 million, but only if the other half was first guaranteed by foreign partners.

Although the project had attracted interest from potential partners as distant as China and India, as well as from universities in Italy, Finland and the United States, none is thought to have felt sufficiently confident of the Spanish government's commitment to make their own funding promises.

Approving funding for the telescope was the first major decision by the newly created Office of Science and Technology (OST), which is in the office of the prime minister. “The office has given its definitive approval for the telescope,” says Fernando Aldana, head of the OST. “That means that the national government, along with the regional government of the Canary Islands, will bear the whole cost of the project” if it fails to find international partners.

But he says that the IAC should continue to seek such partners to cover up to one-third of the project's costs, “given the scientific and technological contribution foreign experts will bring to it”.

Francisco Sanchéz, director of the IAC, says the government's declaration “will allow us to lift the brakes on negotiations” with potential partners. He is confident of being able to sign up partners before the end of the year, giving them time to provide input into the telescope's final design.

Sanchéz says he is keener to bring partners on board for their expertise than for their money. Indeed, he says that there is more interest in the telescope from foreign researchers than the one-third maximum foreign participation the government wants.

For example, the University of Massachusetts is keen to use the telescope to follow up in the infrared spectral range the submillimetre observations made with the Large Millimeter Telescope 50-metre antenna that the university is building in collaboration with Mexico.

Viewing time offered to partners on the new telescope will be proportional to their financial contribution. Partners will also have access to the five per cent observing time on all 20 or so telescopes operating at the IAC's observatory sites.