Nine African partner countries to coordinate on Square Kilometer Array (SKA) project

African partner countries to coordinate on SKA project

Xinhua

CAPE TOWN, — Nine African partner countries will meet in September to develop a joint strategic initiative for winning the right to host two-thirds of the Square Kilometer Array (SKA) project, the world’s largest and most sensitive radio telescope in development, it was announced on Friday.

This will be the first time for the African countries to coordinate on the project since the SKA Organization announced in late May that South Africa and Australia would jointly build the 3, 000-antenna telescope, which will be about 50-100 times more sensitive than any other radio telescope on Earth.

The partner countries will craft mechanisms to develop a research program for the African European Radio Astronomy Platform, which has received support from members of the European Parliament, according to a release from South Africa’s Government Communication and Information System (GCIS).

South Africa and its eight partner countries, namely Botswana, Ghana, Kenya, Madagascar, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia and Zambia, have received 120 million rands (about $14.9 million U.S.) in funding from the African Renaissance Fund for the SKA project to construct a network of single-dish antennae called the African Very Long Baseline Interferometer (VLBI) Network.

The African VLBI Network funding will provide the SKA African partner countries with seed funding to build one radio telescope in each country, and grow an expertise base that will participate in the SKA construction, operations and astronomy research, the GCIS said.

The SKA project is a global scientific enterprise designed as one of the largest scientific instruments ever envisaged. It is designed to answer fundamental questions in physics, astronomy and cosmology in order to gain a better understanding of the origin and workings of the universe and to reveal new and unexpected phenomena that will enthrall and challenge researchers.

The 2-billion-U.S.-dollar project is scheduled to start in 2016 and become fully operational in 2024.

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