SA’s bid to host the world’s most powerful radio telescope, the Square Kilometre Array (SKA), could bring the country as much as €200m (R1,9bn) a year.
This according to an inter-ministerial committee, which is leading SA’s bid for the project.
The committee says if SA wins the bid the annual investment, which will go mainly into operating and maintaining the telescope, will be ploughed into the country for between 20 and 30 years.
The committee has been tasked with providing strategic direction for the project and will lobby science agencies on behalf of SA in the hope of winning the bid.
SA is competing with Australia to host the SKA, and the department of science & technology has said SA needs to stay on the ball if it wants to win.
The committee will also help neighbouring countries prepare partner sites that are expected to support the local installation as the bidding comes into its final stages. The final winner will be announced early in 2012.
Winning the bid for the telescope will not only provide a financial boost for local science, but could create a platform for SA scientists to make the next big scientific discovery.
It is being built to observe, capture and analyse radio signals from just after the Big Bang, which will go a long way to explaining how the universe began.
It will also be used to search for planets that have similar qualities to Earth, in the hope of finding other life in the universe.
A consortium of major international science funding agencies, in consultation with the SKA Science and Engineering Committee, are analysing the bids from SA and Australia.
The telescope, along with SA’s Karoo Array Telescope (MeerKAT) project, will be housed on 14 000ha around the Losberg farm in the Karoo.
MeerKat is a precursor telescope project for the SKA, but it has also been considered one of the most powerful telescopes in the world. — Staff reporter, TechCentral
- Subscribe to our free daily newsletter
- Follow us on Twitter or on Facebook
