LIGO-India construction to start in Hingoli this year; expected to be complete by 2030
In April this year, the DAE floated the first major Engineering, Procurement and Construction (EPC) tender towards the commencement of civil infrastructure and vacuum infrastructure-related works at the proposed site located at Aundha village in Hingoli.
'Works related to the road, civil construction, design of the civil construction phase, vacuum chamber infrastructure, etc, need to be carried out at the site. The construction will start as soon as the EPC contract is issued. Given the current timeline of the EPC tender, work will commence in the latter part of 2025,' Sunil Ganju, the Scientific Secretary of the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC), DAE, told The Indian Express.
India is building the third LIGO detector, thus completing the triad with the two existing US-based observatories. LIGO-India will join the global network of observatories involved in detecting and studying gravitational waves that hold the potential to offer deeper knowledge about our universe and explore its unknown areas.
LIGO-India is a project under the Mega-Science Consortium of DAE and the Department of Science and Technology (DST). DAE will build the observatory in collaboration with the LIGO laboratory of Caltech and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), USA. Indore-based Raja Ramanna Centre for Advanced Technology (RRCAT) is leading the execution of LIGO-India along with the Directorate of Construction, Services and Estate Management (DCSEM), Institute for Plasma Research (IPR), Gandhinagar, and Pune-based Inter-University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics (IUCAA).
LIGO is a gravitational wave detector that consists of a central station flanked by two 4-km-long vacuum chamber arms in an 'L' formation. The detector is a large Michelson Interferometer designed with high sensitivity to detect gravitational waves, done by measuring any variation in the arm lengths.
In September 2015, the two LIGO facilities in the US had made the first ever detection of gravitational waves, a century after Albert Einstein's General Theory of Relativity. In 2016, the Indian government gave 'in-principle' approval to build LIGO-India in Maharashtra. Later, in April 2023, the Union government sanctioned Rs 2,600 crore towards the project.
Over the past two years, work on LIGO-India has slowly gathered momentum with the Indian and US teams engaged in finalising the project design.
'The review of the Design Basis Report (DBR) for the civil infrastructure and the preparation of the Science Requirements Document (SRD) for the vacuum system have been completed. In addition, training for the Indian project teams on the various sub-systems of the detector are progressing at the US facilities,' added Ganju, who is also the head of the Institutional Collaboration and Programs Division, DAE.
In November last year, an MoU was signed between DAE and LIGO-Laboratory, Caltech and MIT, towards the execution of LIGO-India.
'This agreement covers sharing of technical knowledge, detector components and training of human resources for the project. It captures the responsibilities of the LIGO-US and LIGO-India in the collaborative project,' noted the senior DAE official.
Since then, the LIGO-India consortium has continued to grow. Some of the newest members to join include CSIR-Central Glass and Ceramic Research Institute, Birla Institute of Technology and Science, Saha Institute of Nuclear Physics, and IIT-Bombay, among others.
The site in Aundha, Hingoli is currently under development. Works for establishing basic amenities like roads, laying compound walls and readying the land for construction are underway. The site office of the Directorate of Construction, Services and Estate Management (DCSEM) is also situated here.
Since July 2023, land procurement for building a wider approach road stands completed. Land has been acquired for a road of 12.5-m width and 2.45-km length that connects the Nanded-Akola State Highway with the corner station of the site.
Re-routing a few village roads has been initiated with the local administration. Services for the site office have been secured and are being used for site coordination for the construction phase.
The current timeline of the EPC tender has evolved and is in line with the project's completion date. 'As per the timeline of activities in the EPC tender, the project is expected to be completed on schedule with the completion date being April 2030,' he said.
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