Almansa is very similar to Santiago. It is also just over an hour from the sea and is located at an altitude of 800 meters above sea level. It has a Mediterranean climate that favors the cultivation of vineyards. Just like in Chile, but it is in Spain, in the province of Albacete. This is the birthplace of Álvaro González, the man whose mission since January 2 has been to implement the Wideband Sensitivity Upgrade (WSU) project, which will bring the Universe even closer to ALMA.

Álvaro plays a leading role in keeping ALMA at the forefront of world astronomy. His tasks include coordinating activities with all our teams around the world and guiding the next steps of the ALMA 2030 Development Roadmap.
Álvaro González has been working at ALMA for 14 years, but always from Japan. “I started as a development engineer for the Band 10 receiver”, he recalls, and now he is enthusiastic about “speaking Spanish again after so many years”, when he arrives in a country where he already knows Rapanui, Patagonia and the desert.
He describes the WSU project as complex and technically thick: “the different parts of the upgrade will be delivered by Europe, North America and East Asia and everything will be assembled in Chile. Apart from that, the challenge is that it is very diverse in the type of expertise needed. It has a lot of engineering, but then there are also going to be very profound changes in the software to operate the telescope and also in the kind of Science Operations model”.


For the moment the WSU is already in orbit to start with scientific observations towards the end of the decade.
Welcome, Álvaro! Glad to have you here to help us with the WSU!
Bienvenido Álvaro!! Vamos por ese tremendo desafío, qué emocionante!!