The South African government is looking to get a boost from multibillion-rand deals that are set to be signed for the giant radio telescope: the Square Kilometre Array (SKA).
So said Dr Blade Nzimande, higher education, science and innovation minister, in a State of the Nation Address debate statement yesterday.
South Africa and Australia are the joint hosts of the SKA telescope project, an international effort to build the world’s largest radio telescope, with eventually over a square kilometre (one million square metres) of collecting area.
According to Nzimande, close to €700 million (R12 billion) worth of contracts for the construction of the SKA will be awarded to companies and providers in the SKA member countries.
The SKA was estimated to cost €1.8 billion (R30.7 billion) in 2014, including €650 million (R11 billion) for phase one, which represented about 10% of the planned capability of the entire telescope array.
However, there have been numerous delays and rising costs over the nearly 30-year history of the intergovernmental project.
“South Africa stands to benefit greatly as a host country to the SKA,” said the minister.
Insane radio sensitivity
When complete, the SKA will operate over a wide range of frequencies and its size will make it 50 times more sensitive than any other radio instrument.
Furthermore, processing the vast quantities of data produced by the SKA will require very high-performance central supercomputers capable of in excess of 100 petaflops (one hundred thousand million floating point operations per second) of raw processing power.
With receiving stations extending out to a distance of at least 3 000km from a concentrated central core, the SKA will exploit radio astronomy’s ability to provide the highest resolution images in all astronomy.
The giant radio telescope is expected to be completed in 2028.
Revealing some of the ministry’s other important achievements in the science and innovation space, Nzimande pointed to the completion and commissioning of the 64-dish MeerKAT radio telescope.
“The telescope provides scientific capabilities that do not exist anywhere else in the world,” said the minister.
MeerKAT, originally the Karoo Array Telescope, is a radio telescope inaugurated in 2018, consisting of 64 antennas spread over a diameter of 8km in the Northern Cape.
According to the South African Radio Astronomy Organisation, MeerKAT is currently the most sensitive telescope of its kind in the world and is a precursor to the SKA.
Already, the MeerKAT radio telescope has made some ground-breaking discoveries. In December last year, an international team of astronomers utilised the radio telescope to discover a mysterious chain of hydrogen gas clouds the size of a massive galaxy.
The previous month, the radio telescope revealed new, previously unseen cosmic puzzles. In June, the telescope produced a striking image showing a combination of cosmic features never before seen, revealing unexpected details of the inner workings of enormous radio galaxies.
In April 2020, an international team of astronomers uncovered unusual features in the radio galaxy ESO 137-006 using MeerKAT data.
Satellite constellation success
Nzimande added: “As the Department of Science and Innovation, in conjunction with the Cape Peninsula University of Technology, we successfully launched the three Maritime Domain Awareness Satellite constellation at an investment of R27 million over three years.”
He explained this satellite constellation will provide cutting-edge, very high-frequency data exchange communication systems to the country’s maritime industry, in support of Operation Phakisa, enabling South Africa, among other things, to monitor ship movements on its coastline and better manage the country’s fishing resources.
“We have developed the South African Hydrogen Society Roadmap, which we are launching this coming Thursday, to identify the socio-economic benefits that hydrogen-related energy and enabling technologies could have on the South African economy.”
He said government has allocated a budget of R29.9 million for the Platinum Valley project, which will cover the Johannesburg-to-Durban corridor, the OR Tambo International Airport to King Shaka Airport.
On the other achievements, Nzimande said: “In order to support teaching and learning in the wake of COVID-19, last year we provided devices such as laptops and data for approximately over 90% of our students.
“We also provided WiFi to students who were allowed back on campus.”
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