The document discusses the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) radio telescope project in Africa. Key points include:
- The SKA will be the largest radio telescope in the world and building it in Africa is a major opportunity for scientific and economic development.
- It will consist of thousands of antennas across Africa and Australia and generate exabytes of data per day, requiring advanced computing capabilities.
- Building the SKA in Africa can attract young scientists, drive skills development in areas like computing, and potentially lead to Nobel Prizes from African researchers.
- South Africa is hosting the SKA through precursors like MeerKAT, which is helping test technologies and train scientists and engineers. Other African countries
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Presentation dr. fanaroff
1. AAS TWAS NCST
The Square Kilometre Array Radio
Telescope
Nairobi 27 May 2013
2. Africanext great economic growth story
Rapid growth - value added industries, not
only resource extraction
WEF - huge infrastructure programme
planned
Greatest constraint is scientific, engineering,
ICT, commercial etc. skills and capacity to
plan, design, build, operate and maintain
Skills and competency for competitiveness
ICT underpins everything
3. Africa and Big Science
Building the worlds largest science
infrastructure in Africa the Square Kilometre
Array Radio Telescope
A breakthrough for Africa in how we perceive
ourselves and how others perceive us
African scientists to do big science and
fundamental science and high-tech Nobel
Prizes from Africa, by Africans
Exciting projects to attract young people into
science and technology and keep them in Africa
7. SKA Dishes
Dishes to cover the frequency range 500 MHz to 10 GHz
Phase 1: 250 Dishes (do science early), 200km baselines
Phase 2: +-3000 Dishes, up to 3000km baselines
8. SKA Dense Aperture Arrays
Array of "tiles" to cover the medium frequency range from 200 to 500 MHz
3 x 3 m tiles will be grouped into circular stations, 60 m in diameter
9. SKA Dense Aperture Arrays
Array of "tiles" to cover the medium frequency range from 200 to 500 MHz
3 x 3 m tiles will be grouped into circular stations, 60 m in diameter
10. SKA Sparse Aperture Arrays
Array of simple dipole antennas to cover frequency range from 70 200 MHz
Grouped in 100m diameter stations each containing about 90 elements
11. SKA Cost
Acquisition cost (capex and NRE)
I expect about 4 billion decision on Phase
1 cap in July
Operations and maintenance over ~50
years
Probably ~3-400 million per year
Costs to be covered by members of the
SKA Organisation
Other contributions possible EU?
12. SKA Organisation
Ten countries UK, Canada, Germany,
Italy, Netherlands, Sweden, China, South
Africa, Australia, New Zealand
India joining
Four intend to join Japan, South Korea,
France, USA
USA probably after 2020 (Decadal Review
of Astronomy)
Membership currently 250 000 per year
13. SKA site decision timeline
Discussions started early 1990s
Expressions of interest 2003
Proposals December 2005
Short list September 2006
Site testing and planning
Submit proposals (we sent 27000 pages
of supporting documents) September
2011
Recommendation for Africa February
2012
14. Proposed SKA construction timeline
2013 2016 Pre-construction, detailed design
2014 2016 Members seek SKA1 funding, following
establishment of cost-cap (July 2013) and confirmation of
SKA1 scope.
2016/17 Establishment of new governance
arrangements for the SKA Organisation
2017 Tender for and procure construction of SKA1
2017 2020 Detailed design of SKA2
2018 2021 Construction of SKA1
2020 Early science with some components of SKA1
2019 2021 Seek SKA2 construction funding
2022 2027 Construction of SKA2
15. Why the SKA?
Multi-wavelength astronomy
Science case
Galaxy evolution, cosmology and dark energy
Strong field tests of general relativity using pulsars
and black holes
Origin and evolution of cosmic magnetism
Probing the Dark Ages how were the first stars and
black holes formed?
Detect very weak extra-terrestrial signals and will
search for complex molecules, the building blocks of
life, in space
And serendipitous discoveries!
22. What is expected from partners?
Next working group meeting July 2013
Ministers will visit the site
Institutional, technical and scientific capacity
Availability of sites
Testing and characterisation of the sites
Protection from radio frequency interference through
regulation
Easy access for work and research for SKAO people
and goods (diplomatic status?)
No customs, excise duties, VAT
Participate in planning and delivery in country
27. The SKA is an Opportunity
What we make of it depends on what we put into
it nothing is given to us on a plate
Science Nobel Prizes for Africa?
Human capital development and skills - critical mass
of young engineers and scientists with expertise in
next-generation technologies (e.g. Big Data; digital
signal processing; HPC; control etc.) and science
Reverse brain drain
Strengthen universities
Stimulating interest in science and engineering
Jobs in construction, operations and maintenance
Industry involvement
Spin-offs
28. Example - Big Data
Technologies for SKA are innovative
Big Data creating entirely new industries which will
be very dominant in the global economy millions
or billions of sensors sending streams of data;
huge data sets requiring ultra-fast computing,
analysis and visualisation, storage.
SKA >100 x the data traffic of the world-wide web.
An exabyte of data per day 1018
bytes
Exaflop computing speeds current best is some
petaflops. Equivalent would be ~ 108
laptops
Use SKA to get young people into Big Data,
wireless, signal processing etc. so that Africa can
play a world-leading role in these new industries.
29. AERAP
European Parliament Written Declaration
to support Radio Astronomy in Africa
They have established the Africa-Europe
Radio Astronomy Platform to mobilize
funding and collaboration
Working with the European Parliament
and Commission and with European and
African astronomers on projects
Possible major new funding instruments
30. Collaboration
Mutual benefit agreements
DOME IBM Europe, ASTRON (Netherlands), SKA
SA: various aspects of high performance computing
SKA SA and IBM USA machine learning
Intel and SKA SA: pushing next generation chips
Nokia Siemens and SKA: data transport
CISCO and NMMU
CASPER collaboration
Huawei
Many universities and institutes
31. Why Precursors?
Develop and test designs and
technologies
Understand costs
Develop science
Get involved with SA universities to do
MeerKAT science
32. Protected Karoo Site
14 000 ha bought
Protected by Astronomy Geographic
Advantage Act
Access roads, 33kV specially designed
powerline (no sparking), 10Gb/s optical
fibre, buildings etc. built for Kat 7
Roads, airstrip, buildings, sub-station
upgrade for MeerKAT
33. SKA Site and the Central Astronomy
Advantage Area
34. Astronomy Geographical Advantage Act
Empowers the Minister for Science and
Technology to declare protected areas
around strategic astronomy sites by
regulation
Covers both radio and optical astronomy
The Act establishes an AGA Management
Authority to regulate and enforce
Three tiers of protected areas:
Core area the physical area of the
observatory / instrument
Central area surrounds the core area.
Minister prohibits certain activities /
categories of activities in this area
Coordination area Minister sets standards
which activities must comply with
Protected areas apply to existing and new
activities
The Act prevails over existing Electronic
Communications Act, where protection of
radio astronomy is concerned
42. MeerKAT L-Band Receiver
0.9 to 1.67 GHz
Without adding cost MeerKAT sensitivity has been
improved from 220 m2
/K to 300 m2
/K
Mechanical challenges
Size and Weight
Maintaining Vacuum
Heat Transfer
Cost Effective Manufacturing
Design for Manufacture
Design for Assembly
Design for testing
Services
Vacuum pump
Compressor
EM and RF performance are primary design drivers (not
discussed here)
52. 30-m class antennas in Africa
Contributes to
excellent
science with
European and
other VLBI
networks.
Very exciting
science -
looking at
physics very
close to black
holes.
55. Capacity development
Use AVN project to build up institutional,
technical, science capacity
Develop research and teaching in
astronomy and physics exchange
programmes etc.
Major technical training
Interns
Build HPC skills to become involved in
data processing and science
56. Human Capital Development
Research chairs
Visiting / joint professorships
University grants support or lecturers
Postdoctoral fellowships
Postgraduate bursaries
Undergraduate bursaries
Internships
Technician training national diplomas
at universities of technology
FET (artisan) training (from Carnarvon)
9 taken in 2010, 8 employed at SKA SA
Successful initiative
15 taken in for 2012
Development of astrophysics and
related engineering in Africa partner
states
Mobility grants
A focused and structured
programme with a pipeline
strategy
57. Africa HCD workshop at KAT 7 site (May 2011)
Lots of enthusiasm to work with African
60. Astrophysics in Nairobi
CONGRATULATIONS TO UNIVERSITY
OF NAIROBI ON FIRST 18 GRADUATES
IN ASTROPHYSICS
A DIRECT RESULT OF SKA!
STAY IN THE FIELD DO HIGHER
DEGREES
66. Obinna Umeh - Nigeria
An SKA PhD student supervised by (Clark) and George
Ellis, has been an exceptional achiever. Obinna Umeh is
about to graduate, having recently been awarded his PhD.
An examiner from Oxford thought it a remarkable piece of
work and one of the most impressive theses I have read.
He has published 5 papers already, with two awaiting
acceptance, including an invited Key Issues Review for
Reports on Progress in Physics, a review journal with the
highest impact factor in Physics. With an international
collaborator, he has co-written a major new code for
analytically calculating the Einstein equations to high
accuracy. His work is high-impact: he has nearly 100
citations already.
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73. The three signatures of an advanced
country are technology, science &
culture. Astronomy needs &
enables them all George Miley
www.ska.ac.za
Editor's Notes
Development of the first two prototype CASPER/ROACH boards. Designed by MeerKAT DSP team in cooperation with UCB, laid out at NRAO, being debugged at MeerKAT office. Looks good so far.