SA's mega project, the Square Kilometre Array (SKA), will receive an additional R1.1 billion in funding over the next three years, taking SA's contribution to R1.9 billion.
The project, to construct the world's largest telescope, is expected to cost around EUR1.5 billion, which will be split between Africa and the sites located in New Zealand and Australia. Construction is scheduled to begin in 2016/17, and some elements should be operational by 2020, with full operation under way in 2025.
SA and eight partner countries in Africa will share about 70% of the project, with the rest being divided between Australia and New Zealand. The SKA project will operate a radio telescope aggregating signals from thousands of small antennas spread across a square kilometre - one million square metres.
The Department of Science and Technology will spend an additional amount of R3.1 billion over the next three years, which includes R1.1 billion on the project. Its expenditure will grow from R6.2 billion in the new financial year to R7.6 billion in 2015/16.
According to the Estimates of National Expenditure, which accompanied this afternoon's budget release, a total of R1.9 billion has been allocated over the medium-term toward SKA, which includes the demonstration telescope, MeerKAT.
MeerKAT is being constructed in two phases. The seven-dish array prototype was completed in 2010, and 56 antennae are expected to be complete by 2015/16. In 2012/13, R230.6 million was used for the SKA project.
The SKA will be a mega telescope, about 100 times more sensitive than the biggest existing radio telescope. The telescope array will comprise about 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.
In the period leading up to the start of construction, SA will build the 64-dish antennae radio telescope, MeerKAT. The first MeerKAT antenna is scheduled for completion in the new financial year, and the telescope and associated infrastructure are due for completion in 2016/17.
Work on MeerKAT, the current phase of the SKA project, entails the design, testing and construction of 64 Gregorian offset dishes, and includes the costs of appropriate systems, land astronomy, site operations and the telescope array.
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