Preparing the SALT for near-infrared observations

The facility instrument suite at the Southern African Large Telescope (SALT) is being extended into the near-infrared by the arrival of the SALT-NIR spectrograph in 2022. The SALT-NIR is fiber-fed via a set of integral field units that interfaces with the existing Fiber Instrument Feed. Extending the operational wavelength range of SALT from 320 - 900 nm to 320 - 1700 nm requires a number of changes to the physical and optical telescope subsystems and places new demands on its control and pointing software. We present the requirements, design and implementation of these updated systems.