The MICADO first-light imager for the ELT: towards the preliminary design review of the MICADO-MAORY SCAO

MICADO is the European ELT first-light imager, working in the near-infrared at the telescope diffraction limit. Provided by MAORY, the ELT first-light adaptive optics module (AO), MCAO will be the primary AO mode of MICADO, driving the design of the instrument. MICADO will also come with a SCAO capability. Developed under MICADO’s responsibility and jointly by MICADO and MAORY, SCAO will be the first AO mode to be tested at the telescope, in a phased approach of the AO integration at the ELT. The MICADO-MAORY SCAO preliminary design review (PDR) will occur in November 2018. We present here different activities and results we have had in the past two years preparing this PDR, covering several fields (opto-mechanics, electronics, real-time and control software, integration and tests, AO simulations and performance, prototyping) and the different SCAO subsystems (pyramid wavefront sensor, calibration unit, real-time computer, dichroic and the so-called Green Doughnut which hosts the SCAO assembly as well as the MAORY MCAO natural guide star wavefront sensors).