The Square Kilometre Array (SKA) Organisation board of directors has appointed a new director-general for the entity.
Professor Philip Diamond will provide overall leadership for the SKA Organisation, the international coordinating body for the SKA telescope, which is being hosted in Africa and Australia.
The SKA will be the largest and most sensitive radio telescope ever built. It will enable astronomers to glimpse the formation and evolution of the very first stars and galaxies after the Big Bang, investigate the nature of gravity, and possibly even discover life beyond Earth.
Design phase
“The SKA telescope is now moving from technology concept to the final detailed design,” says Diamond.
He will also develop and maintain strategic relationships with national agencies, partners, governments, industry and other private sector entities, along with all other project stakeholders, says the organisation.
It adds that Diamond has 30 years' experience in the field of radio astronomy and a long-standing involvement in the SKA project. He has worked as a professional astronomer in five countries (the UK, Sweden, Germany, the US and Australia) and has been the director of two leading radio astronomy organisations: Jodrell Bank Centre for Astrophysics, and CSIRO Astronomy and Space Science.
Diamond is responsible for the team designing and constructing ASKAP, the Australian SKA Pathfinder, currently being built in Western Australia.
Diamond will succeed Dr Michiel van Haarlem, the interim director-general, who has been in the position since the establishment of the SKA Organisation as a UK company limited by guarantee in December 2011.
Infrastructure boost
Square Kilometre Array
The SKA is a radio telescope intended to probe the cosmos for insights into gravity, relativity, and other astronomical projects. It comprises a collection of phased array antennae which collectively form a single telescope with an effective collection surface of a square kilometre, able to provide enormous amounts of data. The antennae will be located in multiple countries; sites are chosen for clear, interference-free air and access to resources and skills.
South Africa bid for the rights to host the project against an Australian/New Zealand consortium, Argentina, and China. South Africa and Australia were each awarded part of the contract, with SA hosting the majority of the project, providing a boost for the South African scientific community.
The SKA Organisation is a co-operation of 20 member countries, headquartered in the UK.
The project's budget is EUR1.5 billion, and is expected to commence construction in 2016, to yield results by 2019.
www.skatelescope.org
www.ska.ac.za
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SKA on Wikipedia
Science and technology minister Naledi Pandor last week said astronomy projects form some of the major initiatives the department has undertaken in its quest to build a knowledge-based economy.
“The government invests in astronomy as a priority science mission. SA is home to the Southern African Large Telescope, the single biggest optical telescope in the Southern Hemisphere. It is a partnership which includes the involvement of several European countries.
“But perhaps most significantly in May, we and our partners in eight other African countries won the bid to host the SKA, which will be the world's most powerful radio telescope.”
The minister adds that astronomy not only benefits human capital development, but the development of research infrastructure is also significantly boosted through targeted investments in a discipline such as astronomy.
“These investments also encourage the development of research infrastructures of use to the broader scientific community, such as high-speed research networks and computing resources.”
Converting satellites
The department plans to develop an African Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI) Network to contribute to global radio astronomy programmes.
SA and several partner countries in Africa have identified several ground satellite segment communication dishes across the continent, which have now become redundant, because of the construction of optical fibre networks.
These dishes can be converted without major expense to form part of a VLBI Network.
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