South Africa vies to site world’s largest radio telescope

The winning in 2012 of the bid to site the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) – the most powerful radio telescope in the world   would bring a plethora of benefits to South Africa and the African continent, says South Africa’s  Project Director for SKA, Dr. Bernie Fanaroff.

South Africa was short-listed to site this iconic telescope in 2006 by the SKA Steering Committee. Eight other Africa nations; Namibia, Botswana, Ghana, Kenya, Madagascar, Mauritius, Mozambique and Zambia are partnering the country’s bid. They are in competition with just one other bidder; Australia twinned with New Zealand.

Once the site has been chosen by major the project’s principal funders and SKA’s Science and Engineering Committee, construction is expected to start in 2016 under the auspices of a profit office located at the Jodrell Centre for Astrophysics in Manchester, the United Kingdom. The telescope is expected to become operational by 2024.

One hundred times more sensitive than any other telescope, SKA will enable astronomers to locate over a billion new galaxies. Its main objective is to map the distribution of hydrogen in the Universe, which will help explain the expansion of the Universe after the big bang and the nature of the mysterious dark energy. The project was originally mounted by a group of leading astronomers in 2002. The two short-listed lead countries are currently finalising their reports for mid-October 2011 on the strengths of respective bids.

South Africa has near perfect site conditions in the Karoo region in Northern Cape Province, says Dr. Fanaroff, who was recently in Brussels. The chosen location is a non-seismic zone which is not too densely inhabited and has very little light pollution. For astronomy, the area has very rich skies. South Africa can also provide qualified labour and inexpensive services. The suggested site is also near enough to Cape Town for materials to be shipped in with the vision of a “technology cluster” growing around the city.

An iconic project

The major component of the SKA telescope will be an extensive array of approximately 3,000 antennas. Half of these will be concentrated in a 5 km diameter central region, and the rest distributed out to 3,000 km from this central concentration. The combined collecting area of all these antennae will add up to one square kilometre, or one million square metres. Dr. Fanaroff says the project gives the opportunity for the whole of the African continent to gain a reputation for scientific development and move away a step away the unsustainable future of investment in raw materials which has resulted in South Africa’s – and Africa’s – marginalisation in the world economy. He puts the total estimated cost of construction of between €1.5 and 2bn and running costs at €150M a year, hence the need to get as many partners on board as possible in the consortium of countries that will build the telescope. Daan du Toit, Minister Counsellor for Science and Technology at the South African Mission to the European Union says t
hat the African Union gave backing to the project at the 15th session of the assembly of heads of state and government in July 2010.

The sky’s the limit for the potential development benefits for South Africa; construction projects, Information and Communication Technology (ICT) development and human capital investment, even new solar energy projects to power the SKA. The winning of the bid would also be a huge psychological boost for the country, similar to that experienced in hosting the football World Cup in 2010. Dr Fanaroff anticipates that the project will become a development laboratory for communication infrastructures since the rate at which vast quantities of data will be transferred to the supercomputer will far exceed the current data rate for internet traffic transfer via the internet.

SKA also has a precursor in MeerKAT. Construction is already underway to build one of the world’s largest and most powerful telescopes in South Africa near Carnarvon in Northern Cape Province. Its 64 dishes – seven of which already been put in place   will form the core of the larger SKA array and will be fully operational by the end of 2016. Astronomers from the world over have already subscribed for time on MeerKAT to pursue individual research projects.

Scientific generation

Both the MeerKAT and anticipated SKA projects will also create a whole generation of scientists. Already launched in 2005, the SKA Human Capital Development Programme has awarded 293 bursaries, grants and fellowships to all levels of students. Dr. Fanaroff also emphasises that such skills are transferable. Physics graduates, for example, often go on to create very successful business enterprises. South Africa’s Department of Science and Technology and the National Research Foundation have also created SKA research chairs for professors from the United Kingdom, South Africa, Italy and Canada. Several African nations; Botswana, Ghana, Kenya, Madagascar, Mauritius, Mozambique Namibia and Zambia have all set up undergraduate courses in astronomy and the University of Mauritius is launching an MSc programme.

The development of SKA would also fill a gap in the global Very Long Baseline Interferometry Network (VLBI) network which will boost engineering and science skills throughout the African continent involving the conversion of 30-metre in diameter dishes in many African countries into radio telescopes. The construction of terrestrial and marine optical fibre networks throughout Africa has rendered these obsolete. There are currently 26 ground dishes spread out over the continent which can be commissioned, explains Dr. Fanaroff. Governments are currently talking to telecommunications operators to gain access to the redundant dishes. The VLBI programme will kick off with the conversion of a Vodafone 32-metre satellite communications antenna at Kuntunse, Ghana.

Debra Percival