IRAIT telescope and enclosure: engineering aspects for antarctic operation

Aim of this work is to present the current status of the engineering activities related to installation and operation of the IRAIT telescope in the Antarctic environment. Different solutions, which have been studied until now for the enclosure architecture, mechanical subsystems and control electronics, are presented herein. Antarctic environmental characteristics have been underlined in the work as the main constraints for design of components associated to these systems. Moreover, the main features of the tele-operation system have been analyzed and a simple client/server application has been developed to enable telescope operation by a remote user.