The University of Colorado at Boulder has been selected for the headquarters of the National Solar Observatory, the nation’s leading research program in ground- based solar astronomy.
Announced Friday, the relocation of the observatory’s consolidation of the National Solar Observatory into a single site on CU-Boulder’s east campus is expected to result in jobs for up to 70 scientists, engineers and staff with an annual payroll of about $20 million.
“NSO is the premier observatory and solar physics organization in the nation,” said Mark Rast, CU’s associate professor who led the proposal-writing team. CU was chosen over the other finalist, the University of Alabama at Huntsville.
The headquarters will serve as the primary science, instrument, development and data-analysis site for a new solar telescope to be built on Haleakala mountain on Maui in Hawaii.
NSO operations at Kitt Peak in Arizona and Sacramento Peak in New Mexico will be consolidated beginning in 2016 in CU’s Space Sciences Building near the Laboratory for Astrophysics and Space Science.
Stein Sture, CU’s vice chancellor of research, said there are plans for a new building to house the observatory in seven to 10 years.
The award “is a testament to the academic and scientific research we do at the university and the local labs,” Sture said. “With them all collaborating and having the NSO in their midst, it will strengthen everyone’s research.”
The bid underscored Boulder’s makeup, which includes the university, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the National Institute of Standards and Technology and the National Center for Atmospheric Research, and how the proximity could lead to collaborations.
