UKELT: The next generation instrumentation suite for the Extremely Large Telescope (Support for ANDES)

The Extremely Large Telescope (ELT) is the world's most ambitious ground-based optical-infrared astronomical facility. The innovation in the telescope's design is only matched by that of its instrumentation suite. The UK ELT Programme was set up to deliver a sequence of key contributions towards the development of ELT instruments aligned to the broad scientific priorities of the UK astronomical community for the coming decades. The Preliminary Activity of the joint proposal is for essential design work and prototyping for ANDES, the next ELT's next generation high-resolution spectrograph.
ANDES will address fundamental questions in astrophysics and beyond, from the detection and characterisation of exoplanet atmospheres, with the ultimate goal of detecting bio-signatures, to the identification of the fingerprint of the first generation of stars (Population III), as well as problems of fundamental physics, such as the variation in space and time of some of the fundamental constants of physics and the first direct measurement of the expansion of the universe.