The Department of Science and Technology has allocated an additional R30 million to the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) project for connectivity.
The array, set to be the world's largest telescope, will be shared between SA and eight partner countries in Africa, which will have about 70% of the project, while the balance will be shared between Australia and New Zealand.
The telescope, which will probe the mysteries of the universe, will process large amounts of data and require substantial broadband capacity.
According to Treasury's Adjusted Estimates of National Expenditure, released today along with the medium-term budget statement, the project will benefit from an additional amount of R30 million to acquire international broadband connectivity on the West Africa Cable System.
Ren'e Jacobs, MD of Gartner Africa, has said the data collected by the SKA array in 24 hours would take two million years to play back on an iPod.
About 800Gbps of data at peak times will come out the telescopes, Jasper Horrell, GM of science, computing and innovation at SKA SA, has stated. The data rates on phase one will be 10 to 20 times that of the MeerKAT, which will form part of the final array, he noted.
MeerKAT is SA's demonstration telescope and is being constructed in two phases, with the aim of completion in the 2013/14 financial year. According to Treasury's Medium-Term Budget Policy Statement, further investment will be made in the MeerKAT phase, which entails construction of 64 telescope dishes and associated infrastructure.
In February's budget, Treasury said the state had allocated R894.6 million over the medium-term to complete MeerKAT.
The SKA budget of EUR1.5 billion will be split between the sites, with construction scheduled to begin in 2016. It is expected that some elements will be operational by 2020, with full operation under way in 2025.
Last year, the Department of Science and Technology spent 99.9% of its budget and has spent 62.8% of its current budget in the first half of the year.
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