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The telescope Main Structure and the Dome of the ELT are being procured by ESO as an integrated system together with the auxiliary building and the service plants and are supplied by the ACe Consortium. The contract was signed in May 2016 and despite various challenges and obstacles – commercial, technical, and other – the progress that has been achieved to date is significant and tangible. Both the Dome (including Auxiliary Building) and the Telescope Structure have passed Final Design Review; manufacture of the structural elements is approaching completion; the first mechanisms have been tested and delivered to site; and the publicly available footage of the construction speaks for itself. Nevertheless, there is still a long road to completion, with various design optimisations being incorporated as manufacture is ongoing, diligence needed to maintain quality and a significant effort still to be expended in implementing and testing the control system(s) for the mechanisms and services. In this paper we will describe the advancement reached by the project and discuss some technical aspects associated to the design. The status of the design, of the manufacturing and of the construction on site will be described.
Martinez et al. (Wed,) studied this question.