A groundbreaking ceremony and blessing for the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) will take place on Oct. 7.
Public officials, telescope partners and members of the TMT International Observatory will gather on Mauna Kea to officially kick off construction of the $1.3 billion telescope.
Gov. Neil Abercrombie and Hawaii County Mayor Billy Kenoi will attend and deliver remarks, according to a statement released Friday by TMT. TIO board chair Henry Yang also is expected to comment.
The telescope, part of a new generation of advanced optical telescopes, is not expected to be operational until 2022.
The TMT Board of Directors was given the green light in July to begin construction after the state Board of Land and Natural Resources dismissed requests for contested case hearings on the project’s sublease.
The sublease with University of Hawaii covers 8.7 acres on a northern plateau within the Mauna Kea Science Reserve.
TMT founding members include Caltech, the National Astronomical Observatories of the Chinese Academy of Science, the National Institutes of Natural Sciences in Japan and the University of California. India and Canada are both “associates” of the project but are expected to become full members.