Johannesburg, 15 Jun 2011
Intel SA and the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) project have entered into a partnership that will strengthen the case for an Africa-hosted SKA.
The Department of Science and Technology (DST) says the two have partnered to evaluate Intel technologies in processing the enormous data rates produced by radio telescopes.
“The parties entered into an agreement to make these technologies available to SKA SA and put forth a joint engineering effort to further test and optimise them.”
It adds that this collaboration, in applying the cutting-edge technology to raw data capture and online stream processing, pushes the envelope of what is possible today in scientific instruments.
It also puts South African scientists and engineers at the forefront of the field, says the DST.
SA is bidding against Australia to host the SKA, which will be the world's largest telescope. The successful country will be announced next year.
International intent
Nine countries, including SA, have signed a letter of intent to see the SKA telescope built.
The DST says Australia, China, UK, France, Italy, Germany, Netherlands and New Zealand signed the letter in Italy.
By doing so, they declared their common intention to see the SKA built and agreed to work together to secure funding for the next phase of the project.
The department adds that, apart from the nine countries which have already signed the letter of intent, several countries have indicated they will sign in future.
Highly sensitive
The project cost is EUR1.5 billion and construction could start as early as 2016, according to the DST.
“The design, construction and operation of the telescope has the potential to impact on skills development in science, engineering and in associated industries not only in the host countries but in all project partner countries.”
The SKA is a mega telescope, about 100 times more sensitive than the biggest existing radio telescope.
It will consist of approximately 3 000 dish-shaped antennae and other hybrid receiving technologies, with a core of about 2 000 antennae and outlying stations of 30 to 40 antennae each, spiralling out of the core. These stations will be spread over a vast area of up to 3 000km.
Research areas will include observational radio astronomy, radio astronomy instrumentation, digital signal processing, distributed data processing and RF broadband feeds, receivers and cryogenic packages.
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