thirty meter telescope la palma deadline

Countdown for giant telescope as Spain sets September deadline

September deadline for the Thirty Meter Telescope

The bitter, decade-long struggle to secure a home for the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) now has a firm deadline. This September will determine, after more than ten years of back-and-forth, whether the giant telescope – one of the next generation of astronomical behemoths – will finally be built on the summit of La Palma. Spain’s government is giving the project’s promoters two months to decide the telescope’s fate.

As revealed by the secretary general of the Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities, Eva Ortega Paíno, in an interview with El País, if no response is received before the end of the ninth month of the year, the construction permit will expire. The €400 million earmarked by the Centre for Technological Development and Innovation (CDTI), which Pedro Sánchez’s government has been reserving for this purpose, will then have to be redirected to other projects. The deadline stems directly from the construction permits, which lapse at the end of September. Renewing them could take two years – potentially too long to keep the funding offer on the table.

Billions at stake

The clock will start ticking in July, just as the European Investment Bank (EIB) is expected to confirm a €600 million loan for the project. That sum precisely covers the remaining cost overrun that the telescope has accumulated in recent years: one billion dollars. Sources at the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC) say this offer could be announced during the annual meeting of the IAC’s Governing Council at the end of July.

The project began in 2003 with a budget of $2 billion, but years of delays have pushed that figure to $3 billion. Over the past 23 years, around $1 billion has already been spent on design and construction. Another $1 billion is expected to come from the countries and universities that make up the international TMT consortium (also known as TIO, for Thirty Meter Telescope International Observatory). The final $1 billion in cost overruns is the main obstacle undermining the project’s long-term viability.

Diplomatic push across the globe

Throughout this period, both the Spanish and Canarian governments have worked to strengthen ties with the American partners. Sources from the Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities confirm that between March and June 2026, the secretary general for Research, Eva Ortega, accompanied by the director general of the CDTI, José Moisés Martín, and the director of the IAC, Valentín Martínez Pillet, carried out official missions to Tokyo, New Delhi and Ottawa – the TMT’s main partners. Spain has travelled “almost 48,000 kilometres to hold direct meetings with political leaders, scientists and project managers.” The country has undertaken “an unprecedented exercise in scientific, economic and institutional diplomacy,” ministry sources stress.

The Canary Islands, for their part, have driven the Diploinnova scientific diplomacy project, which made it possible to invite Robert P. Kirshner, executive director of the TMT, to visit La Palma as part of a series of scientific conferences aimed at consolidating the archipelago’s role in international research.

India leads the way, Hawaii still in the running

For now, according to the Ministry of Science and Innovation, one of the partners most favourable to the La Palma bid is India. The country has held this position since 2018. The remaining partners are waiting and have not yet ruled out the possibility of Hawaii. In fact, in parallel to the negotiations with the Canary Islands over the past year, the international TMT consortium remains open to finding formulas that would allow it to install the telescope in Hawaii, even if that means scaling back its original ambitions. The final decision now hinges on unanimous support from the current members of the international TMT consortium – a decision Spain hopes will arrive before the deadline.

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