{"id":28568,"date":"2011-07-08T09:13:04","date_gmt":"2011-07-08T07:13:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/?p=28568"},"modified":"2011-07-08T10:29:41","modified_gmt":"2011-07-08T08:29:41","slug":"sa-committed-to-hosting-ska","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/technology\/28568-sa-committed-to-hosting-ska.html","title":{"rendered":"SA committed to hosting SKA"},"content":{"rendered":"

South Africa is committed to hosting the Square Kilometer Array (SKA), says Science and Technology Minister Naledi Pandor<\/a>.<\/p>\n

“South Africa’s own national commitment to advancing the SKA project has been cemented in all spheres of our Government, including at the provincial level,” she said.<\/p>\n

Speaking at the SKA meeting held in Banff, Canada, Pandor told delegates at the meeting that much work has been done.<\/p>\n

“We have chosen an exceptionally good site for the SKA in a remote region of South Africa, a region with very little economic activity. We have provided statutory protection for the site through the Geographic Astronomy Advantage Act,” she said.<\/p>\n

The SKA is a multibillion rand international radio telescope that will be between 50 and 100 times more sensitive than any instrument ever built in Africa.<\/p>\n

South Africa has partnered with several other African countries – Botswana, Ghana, Kenya, Madagascar, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia and Zambia – in the bid to host the SKA.<\/p>\n

If South Africa wins the bid, it stands to gain international recognition in the fields of science and technology.<\/p>\n

\"MeerKAT\"<\/a>

MeerKAT<\/p><\/div>\n

Pandor said important milestones related to MeerKAT have been achieved, many of them ahead of schedule.<\/p>\n

“Our progress has allowed us to plan to publish tenders for Meerkat at the end of this year,” she said.<\/p>\n

MeerKAT is South Africa’s precursor telescope to the SKA and will consist of 64 dishes, each 13.5m in diameter.<\/p>\n

The African Union endorsed the SKA bid at the 15th AU Summit of Heads of State in Uganda last year.<\/p>\n

Pandor also said South Africa is committed to providing the world with the largest and most sensitive radio telescope in the Southern Hemisphere until the SKA is completed.<\/p>\n

“We hope that the immense potential of MeerKAT will not be ignored when the most efficient and cost-effective roll-out for the Phase One of SKA is considered,” she said.<\/p>\n

South Africa is currently competing with Australia in hosting the SKA.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

South Africa is committed to hosting the Square Kilometer Array (SKA)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39,"featured_media":28572,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[36,2154,2158,1239,2156],"class_list":["post-28568","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-technology","tag-active","tag-meerkat","tag-naledi-pandor","tag-ska","tag-square-kilometer-array"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28568"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/39"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28568"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28568\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28576,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28568\/revisions\/28576"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28572"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28568"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28568"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28568"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}