Former Science and Technology Minister Mosobudi Mangena says he is delighted that the project he helped spearhead, the Square Kilometer Array (SKA), has finally come to Africa where it belongs. Mangena thanked the current minister, Naledi Pandor, and all the people who played a role in securing the SKA bid that South Africa is sharing with Australia. He said: “I’m really thrilled to see how far it has come and that all these efforts by so many South Africans have born fruit. We are still going to have work with the SKA building the dishes and running the project. I hope that in the near future we will see many PhD’s and even awards that young South Africans will win out of this work.” Director of the Square SKA, Bernie Fanaroff, says South Africa now has to prove that it has more than just the capability to host the project. “Now we’ve got the opportunity and the challenges to transform it. Not only do we have to deliver on what we have promised. We’ve got to have a strategy that allows us to seize these opportunities that we can really entrench South Africa as the vision that the minister is giving us. Not just a SKA nation, but a world leading science station.” At a celebratory dinner on July 17, Science and Technology Minister Naledi Pandor said it’s all systems go for the country to start building the telescope.”The outcome of the SKA site bid is the beginning of great things to come…This wonderful opportunity is now in our hands and it is our responsibility to make the most of it through innovation, excellence and hard work.”
SA now needs to deliver and rise to the challenge of building the SKA
After nine years of preparation,Members of the SKA Organisation announced on May 25, 2012 that the SKA telescope would be split over Africa andAustralia, with a major share of the telescope destined to be built inSouth Africa.
The next steps for the SKA project involve detailed design and pre-construction phase (2013 – 2015) followed by the construction of SKA Phase 1 – making up about 10% of the total instrument. SKA Phase 1 will incorporate the precursor telescopes at both sites – the MeerKAT telescope inSouth Africaand the ASKAP telescope inAustralia. Construction on SKA Phase 2 should be underway (2018 – 2023) with full science operations commencing by 2024.
How the SKA will be split across Africa andAustralia
SKA Phase 1 (2016 – 2020; about 10% of the total SKA)South AfricaAustralia254 dishes in theNorthern Cape, about 80 km from Carnarvon. (64 MeerKAT dishes plus 190 extra SKA dishes)96 dishes inWestern Australia(36 Australian SKA Pathfinder (ASKAP) dishes plus 60 more SKA dishes) plus a large number of small, low-frequency fixed-orientation dipole antennas, each about 1,5 m high.SKA Phase 2 (2018 – 2024; about 90% of the SKA)South Africa & African partnersTelescope will extend to long baselines of 3 000 km or moreAustraliaTelescope extends over a baseline of 200 km, and possibly longerAbout 3 000 SKA dishes across Africa, most of them concentrated in the Northern Cape, but also with antenna stations in Namibia, Botswana, Zambia, Mozambique, Kenya, Ghana, Madagascar and Mauritius. In addition, about 250 flat, disk-shaped dense aperture array antennas, each about 60 m in diameter.Up to 10 times more of the small, low-frequency fixed- orientation dipole antennas – each about 1,5 m high.
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