The Democratic Alliance (DA) has questioned the Department of Science and Technology's (DST's) proposed cut of over R500 million from its Space Science sub-programme.
The DST announced the cut in its Adjusted Estimates of National Expenditure 2010, according to DA shadow minister of science and technology Marian Shinn.
She adds that a note in the “declared savings” of the DST's vote in the budget adjustments before Parliament states that “savings of R508.875 million, due to the rescheduling of the Square Kilometre Array demonstrator (SKA) telescope, have been declared”.
“A search of the Web sites of the department and SKA shows no mention of a re-scheduling of the demonstrator telescope. While there may be a good reason why this money has been 'saved', the minister needs to share it with the public.”
Shinn says the impact of the re-scheduling on the timely submission of SA's bid needs to be made public knowledge. It must also be determined whether Australia, which is the other contender for the array, has also re-scheduled its telescope development.
“The DA would like the department to explain whether we are now behind in our preparations for the bid, or whether the project's financial alteration is something we should embrace.”
“While the US has endorsed the EUR1.5 billion SKA project, and is expected to contribute about 40% of the costs, only $12 million has been allocated by the US government since 2007.”
Shinn says her understanding is that the SKA funding has been put on the back-burner and will be used at a later stage.
She adds that the department has done some reshuffling and, as a result of the cuts, has been able to put a lot of money into infrastructure for the National Research Foundation. “I think it's a good move, but we need to know the impact it will have on the SKA.”
The DST did not respond to ITWeb's queries by the time of publication.
Mega investment
The final decision regarding the successful host country for the SKA telescope is expected in 2012, with work due to start in 2013. Operations will start in 2015, provided a significant portion of the array has been commissioned.
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.
The DST says research areas will include observational radio astronomy, radio astronomy instrumentation, digital signal processing, distributed data processing and RF broadband feeds, receivers and cryogenic packages.
SA has spent R258 million on securing the project. The DST says R23 million was spent on universities, while R155 million had been spent building roads to the site. Another R11.5 million was spent on building accommodation.
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