Telescope Control System

The Utah Procurement Code provides that a procurement may be made without competition when the University determines that there is only one source that can reasonably meet the University’s need for the required supply or service, as described in Utah Code Ann. § 63G-6a-802. The Purchasing Department has received the following request for sole source procurement Product and/or Service to be purchased:Telescope Control System Sole Source Supplier:DFM Engineering Inc Earliest Proposed Purchase Date:April 11, 2024 Buyer Name:Jon Pezely Sole Source Justification: The equipment includes the telescope fork mount, drive systems, drive encoders, focusing mechanism, mirror design, cable interfacing, software interfacing, hardware to software interfacing, telescope mirror door control and interface, gps interface, dome interface, control software, pointing model software, and manual remote control device. The current telescope was procured through DFM Engineering. Their design and hardware

interfacing is proprietary and the amount of reverse engineering required would be extensive and costly. The refit would require rewiring of the telescope and computer system from the telescope to the control room. This run is around 75 feet and has about 14 different cables which are purpose made for the particular connections between the two sites ($5000 hardware, plus personnel time costs for install ~$2000). A new interface for the dome control would also be required in addition to the telescope control system (>$1500). New mirror door controls would need to be purchased as it is also a proprietary connection and hardware controller created by DFM (likely >$1000). New control hardware will be required and would need to be reverse engineered to fit the motor-drives, proprietary axis position sensors, and the interface ($30k-50k). Upgrading the motor-drives would be provided with the DFM upgrade, but would incur more cost by a third-party vendor (>>$10k hardware) due to the proprietary hardware interface of the motors and encoder systems on the telescope. DFM is training a UofU employee in-house for the install of the DFM system saving the department an additional $10,000-15,000 associated with an installer from the company ($1200/person/day, 1 week install, at least two people, plus airfare/transportation/room/board). A new non-subscription based telescope software control system would also be needed (~$5000 for a base software system, >$2500 for additional software required). Engineering requirements by a third party to design and reverse engineer the system would likely cost >>$120-200/hr (likely $20,000 total). The third party vendor would need an on-site visit to gather the required measurements, hardware requirements, etc. for the pre-design which would also be a cost incurred by the UofU PandA ($1200/person/day, plus AF/Tnsp/rm/bd, likely >$4000). Separate computer control for software and hardware interfacing (~$3000). Extra assistance for on-site analysis, on-site installation and removal of parts by UofU personnel (~$4000).