Londiwe Buthelezi
South Africa would experience unprecedented levels of artisan training, funded by the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) Organisation in its bid to build human capital for the project, a manager for the radio telescope operator said yesterday.
Speaking at the IT Infrastructure Africa Summit in Cape Town, Jasper Horrell, the general manager of science, computing and innovation at SKA South Africa, said the organisation expected to begin the construction of the first phase of the SKA in 2016.
Before then, SKA SA would focus on completing MeerKAT, the precursor 64-dish array telescope that would be integrated into phase one of the SKA.
South Africa and its African partners would build 250 mid-frequency antennas for phase one of the project while Australia would build 96.
In phase two, 2 500 antennas would be built in Africa, which would multiply the project’s data transmission 100 times. This phase would include a mid-frequency aperture array.
The computing and information and communications technology (ICT) skills that would be required “is huge. We have initiated a human capacity programme where we are giving grants to universities, not only to study astronomy but artisans and engineers as well,” Horrell said.
He added that construction of the telescope between 2016 and 2024 the SKA would create about 400 times more construction jobs than those created by the MeerKAT project, and long-term operational jobs would also be added.
“We have hundreds of people involved in the construction work of MeerKAT. The SKA is 400 times bigger than MeerKAT, so we really expect more people to be involved.”
Other spin-offs of the project included opportunities for businesses that would help build the telescope, service it, as well as operate it.
Horrell said an international tender had been put out for the building of the antennas for MeerKAT and a similar process was expected with the construction of SKA.
“But hopefully there are competitive South African components firms that can build some parts,” Horrell said.
The SKA Organisation announced in May this year that the SKA telescope would be split between Africa and Australia, with a majority share of the telescope destined to be built in South Africa.
The telescope in Africa would extend to long baselines of 3 000km or more, compared with 200km in Australia.
The cost of the SKA project has been set at e1.5 billion (R15.3bn), but Horrell said later indications were that it could be as much as e3bn.
“I’d expect (the cost) to be probably more than e1.5bn . But it remains to be seen. And others expect it to be more.”
Horrell said operational costs for the project would be roughly 10 percent of the capital cost.
The SKA Organisation is a non-profit body. It has nine member countries, with India an associate member. These countries will fund the SKA project and Horrell said an exact ratio of how much each member would contribute was yet to be worked out.
“The actual securing of the funds from the governments is in process. Negotiations are under way,” he noted.
The SKA member countries are Australia, Canada, China, Italy, the Netherlands, New Zealand, South Africa, Sweden and the UK.
Other African countries have not signed up individually but are represented by South Africa. Funding for their share will have to come from the South African government.