SA Scientists to oversee design of SKA



Lazarus Sauti

Square Kilometre Array South Africa’s associate director for science and engineering Justin Jonas on Monday said South African scientists are to lead two of the 10 teams that will oversee the design of SKA radio telescope.

Jonas also said local scientists are deeply involved in the systems engineering for many of the other teams, including the consortium charged with preparing for the procurement of the SKA dishes.

He commented: “Whatever the SKA looks like in the end it will be designed by South Africans.
‘We made a conscious decision to push our engineering capacity, and we plan to increase our engineering staff by a fifth.”

Supporting Jonas’ sentiments, SKA SA general manager for science computing and innovation Jasper Horrell also noted that seven South African companies as well as two local universities are involved in the design work.

The SKA will be the world’s largest telescope, with a total collecting area of 1km².

It will eventually combine the radio signals received from thousands of large dishes and millions of radio receivers in Africa and Australia.

The SKA will be able to detect very faint radio signals emitted shortly after the Big Bang, and may help answer questions about the nature of dark matter and dark energy.

The SKA organisation has 10 member countries: Australia, Canada, China, Germany, Italy, New Zealand, South Africa, Sweden, the Netherlands and the UK. India is an associate member.

 


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