10 October 2023 – An important two-week marine operation has been successfully carried out at the KM3NeT ARCA site, offshore Capo Passero, Sicily in September.
The campaign was performed with the Optimus Prime, equipped with a FUGRO underwater vehicle (ROV). The ship set sail from Malta on Monday, 11 September and came back to the port at the end of the operation on Thursday, 23 September.
The operation was among the last activities of PACK, a project supported by MUR (the Italian Ministry of University and Research) for the period 2019-2023, aimed at enlarging the deep-sea telescope and at enhancing the KM3NeT facilities in Bari, Caserta and Naples.
Soon after completing the operation, the commissioning of the enlarged ARCA telescope was started.
ARCA now comprises 28 detection units, which are altogether equipped with 504 Digital Optical Modules, with a total of more than 15,000 photomultipliers.
