Pictures from a visit to see the Fibre Positioning Module baseplate being manufactured at Alimex GmbH in Willich, nr Dusseldorf. The plate is being machined on a massive DMU 270P 5-axis mill.
The monolothic baseplate is made from ultra-stable 5080 ACP aluminium alloy. It has 1069 ‘facets’ onto which the FPUs, acquisition cameras and fiducials will attach. Each facet has a unique angle with respect to the component datums, as well as very tight profile tolerances, which is what makes it such a challenging machining job.
MOONS: Multi-object Optical and Near-IR spectrograph 