Let's do the Math!!

As the year ends, we would like to take the chance to wish you all a wonderful New Year filled with abundant joy and treasured moments.
May 2017 be your best year yet!

It is also a good time to look back at what happened during 2016, a remarkable year for EIE GROUP, and draw some conclusions.

Being awarded the contract as Nominated Subcontractors for the Design and the Construction of the Dome and Telescope Main Structure of ESO’s largest telescope ever, the 39m class European Extremely Large Telescope, E-ELT, with Astaldi SpA and Cimolai SpA, EIE has definitely been appointed as a worldwide leader in areas such as Astronomy, Astrophysics, Big Science, Civil Infrastructures and large scientific technological facilities.
A very tight schedule beats the time for the many design aspects yet to be defined and towards the first project milestones, the Preliminary Design Review phases for both Dome and Telescope, which should take place within the first half of 2017.

Last March, within the frame of a complex process to re-design the business strategies, set new goals and cope with rising commitments, EIE GROUP has expanded its team with 15 brand-new engineers and designers.
2016 has also seen a major change in the corporate structure with the setting up of EIE Ground Technologies, the branch for Ground applications, EIE Space Technologies, the subsidiary of EIE GROUP dedicated to the aerospace industry and EIE Engineering & Design the subsidiary for full and systemic Engineering Services.

2016 has also seen major developments on various other projects we are carrying out, like:
• The Large Synoptic Survey Telescope, LSST, for which the Dome Final Design Review was carried out successfully during the month of June and the project is now undergoing the construction phase.
• The Magdalena Ridge Observatory, MRO, is now in the pre-assembly phase, the steel structure fully pre-assembled, while accessories and equipment are being installed. The relocation system of the entire enclosure has been assembled and painted.
• The Turkish DAG telescope for which the Dome Final Design Review was carried out successfully during the month of July is also undergoing pre-construction phases for Dome and Telescope.
• In October 2016, the ASTRI telescope prototype, a novel dual-mirror Schwarzschild-Couder telescope design proposed for CTA, passed its biggest test yet by demonstrating a constant point-spread function of a few arc minutes over a large field of view of 10 degrees. And this is a major goal, as states Giovanni Pareschi, astronomer at the INAF-Brera Astronomical Observatory and principal investigator of the ASTRI project. “This is an important result because it allows us to move immediately to the next step: to mount a Cherenkov camera by December 2016 with the aim to observe the first gamma-ray light with ASTRI.”

The summer brought also a virtuous industrial collaboration between our company and Officina Stellare, leader in the design and the manufacturing of opto-mechanical instrumentation for professional applications.
With this operation EIE GROUP intends to serve the SSA (Space Situational Awareness), community with a wide range of solutions ranging from 15 to 150 inches optical telescopes with enclosures, telescope arrays for ultra-wide angle survey and tracking, fully automated systems, CFRP radio antennas, as well as innovative opto-mechanical configurations.

As for the Space activities, EIE Space Technologies introduces HYPSOS (patent pending), a revolutionary stereo-hyperspectral imager for space and airborne applications. The system is capable to generate a Digital Terrain Model and a hyperspectral mapping of the surface in one shot, using only one detector unit and without moving parts. We will be more than happy to give further information about it, if required.

Back on the national territory we are very proud to announce that last November, EIE GROUP, in consortium with Vitrociset SpA and ICOM Srl was awarded by INAF – Osservatorio Astronomico di Cagliari, the contract for the “Functional refurbishment of the active surface (SSA), of the Sardinia Radio Telescope primary mirror”.

The Sardinia Radio Telescope, SRT, based in Selargius, near Cagliari - Sardinia - is a major radio astronomical facility for outstanding scientific observations.
It represents a flexible instrument for Radio Astronomy, Geodynamical studies and Space science.
The active surface, composed by more than 1100 actuators, once refurbished, will adjust the profile of the primary mirror to recover the ideal shape from gravitational, thermal and, possibly, wind effects.

This said, it’s time to draw some conclusions and before extending our best wishes again to you and your families for the upcoming holidays, we leave you with a few words of our President:
"Employment growth, outstanding international project acquisitions, technology innovations and a constant openness towards new opportunities from the markets are key ingredients to success for EIE GROUP and mirror of a Country that wants to play a major role among the big nations of the world.
To all my collaborators and engineers, prime authors of this continuous progress, to all of our families and to all of us, entrepreneus, shaping our companies, in the attempt to characterize our Country, goes my heart-felt thanks and sincere esteem.
Merry Christmas to you all, may 2017 be in the sign of growth and innovation" - Gianpietro Marchiori