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F I S C A L I M P A C T R E P O R T

SPONSOR Cravens

ORIGINAL DATE

LAST UPDATED

2/12/2007

HB

SHORT TITLE Magdalena Ridge Observatory

SB 779

ANALYST McOlash

APPROPRIATION (dollars in thousands)

Appropriation

Recurring

or Non-Rec

Fund

Affected

FY07

FY08

$250.0

Recurring

General Fund

(Parenthesis ( ) Indicate Expenditure Decreases)

SOURCES OF INFORMATION

LFC Files

Responses Received From

Higher Education Department (HED)

SUMMARY

Synopsis of Bill

Senate Bill 779 appropriates $250,000 from the General Fund to the NM Tech Regents for

expenditure in FY 2008 for operation of the Magdalena Ridge Observatory (MRO) at NM Tech.

FISCAL IMPLICATIONS

The appropriation of $250,000 contained in this bill is a recurring expense to the General Fund.

Any unexpended or unencumbered balance remaining at the end of FY 2008 shall revert to the

General Fund.

Higher Education Department Analysis

An MRO administrator described the intent of SB779 as providing NMT and

the MRO with partial support for its first year of operations. The MRO itself is

being constructed with federal funding provided through the Naval Research

Laboratories. This funding, however, cannot be used for operations and must

come from other sources.

Senate Bill 779 – Page

2

Another MRO administrator indicated that while the MRO will require

operating funds for as long as the observatory is in service, it does not see the

state government as a permanent funding source beyond the initial years. The

MRO business model intends to raise money for its operating costs from

various users of the facility once it is up and running. This funding will also go

toward future expansion needs.

SIGNIFICANT ISSUES

The Magdalena Ridge Observatory is located in the Magdalena mountains of Socorro county,

central New Mexico near South Baldy peak and the Langmuir Laboratory for Atmospheric

Research, some 30 miles west of the NMT campus. At an elevation of 10,600 ft. above sea level,

it will be the fourth highest observatory in the world.

The following institutions are involved in the design and construction:

•

New Mexico Tech

•

University of Cambridge - Cavendish Astrophysics Group

•

Los Alamos National Laboratory

•

New Mexico State University

•

New Mexico Highlands University

•

University of Puerto Rico

The project is overseen by the United States Naval Research Laboratory.

A Los Alamos National Laboratory news release indicated that NM Tech is the lead institution in

site development and infrastructure design for the MRO. New Mexico State University is in

charge of designing and building instrumentation, offering its expertise in running a major

observatory. New Mexico Highlands University is responsible for controls, system integration,

and designing a spectrograph, a device that acts like a prism. The University of Puerto Rico will

design and build adaptive optics and interferometers.

The observatory is primarily intended for astronomical research and will be composed of two

facilities, a single 2.4-meter telescope and an array of optical/infrared telescopes called an

interferometer.

The project is scheduled for completion in 2009. The 2.4-meter-diameter single telescope, a fast

slewing telescope which can respond quickly to targets-of-opportunity, has first light in

September 2006. The interferometer, which is composed of ten 1.4-meter telescopes, expects

first light by 2008. The telescopes making up the interferometer will be spaced by distances of

up to 400 meters. These telescopes are optically linked together in order to make images of

astronomical objects with unprecedented detail.

With this interferometric technology, the telescopes will synthesize (i.e. simulate) the resolving

power of a single telescope up to 400 meter in diameter and thus will be able to resolve objects

with 100 times the resolution of the Hubble Space Telescope. The advantage of having a large

Senate Bill 779 – Page

3

number of telescopes in the array is that the interferometer will be able to make accurate images

of complex astronomical objects many times faster than other existing and planned

interferometric arrays.

OTHER SUBSTANTIVE ISSUES

BM/csd