The NOvA (NuMI off-axis ν_e appearance) experiment is looking to answer fundamental questions about neutrinos and the role they play in the universe. NOvA will use two detectors, a near detector located underground at Fermilab in Batavia, Illinois, and a far detector located 810 km from Fermilab near the United States-Canada border in Ash River, Minnesota.

The 14 kton far detector and the 0.3 kton near detector are composed of several cells of extruded PVC plastic in a cellular structure. This article discusses the survey of the NOvA detectors using a laser tracker and laser scanner.

NOvA  is a second-generation experiment on the NuMI (neutrino at main injector) beamline designed to search for oscillations of muon neutrinos to electron neutrinos (ν_μ → ν_e) by comparing electron neutrino rates at Fermilab with electron neutrino rates observed 810 km away from Fermilab at Ash River, Minnesota (figure 1).¹

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