June 2009 New leaders and local communities No. 10 confirm their support for SKA South www.ska.ac.za/newsletter Following the April 2009 General Elec- The preparation of the astronomy site tion in South Africa, the South African at Losberg, the support base at Klere- SKA Project has briefed the Minister fontein and the infrastructure has for Science and Technology who spoke created business and job opportunities about her support for the SKA and the in the area for local people, and there MeerKAT in her budget speech in is huge enthusiasm for the project in parliament. The project office also these communities. briefed the new Premier of the North- ern Cape, Hazel Jenkins and the A small number of farmers and their Director General of the Province, employees will be affected by the Moira Marais-Martin, on the progress regulations in terms of the Astronomy of the South African SKA site bid, the Geographic Advantage Act which will establishment of a protected radio regulate transmissions in the area astronomy reserve and the construc- which might interfere with the Meer- tion of the MeerKAT Telescope. The KAT or the SKA. The South African SKA Premier and the Director General Project and the Department of Sci- confirmed the continuing and enthusi- ence and Technology are working with astic support of the Northern Cape the Agricultural Union and the af- Government for the project. fected farmers to implement alterna- tive solutions for services which might Following the meeting with the be lost, including TV, emergency com- Premier, the South African SKA munications, trunked telecommunica- Project Director Dr Bernie Fanaroff, tions and even internet connections. SA SKA Human Capital Manager Kim de Boer, SA SKA Infrastructure Man- The South African SKA Project office ager Tracy Cheetham, Department of facilitated the establishment of a Science and Technology General Man- Cyberlab at the Carnarvon High School ager Dr Tshepo Seekoe, Northern by the Universal Service and Access Cape Government SKA Project Man- Agency of South Africa (USAASA). ager Paki Monyobo and the SA SKA Forty-five computers have been in- Site Manager Dawie Fourie met with stalled in a specially designed labora- and briefed the local stakeholder fo- tory at the school and the Project and rum in Carnarvon. The stakeholder USAASA are working on an interim forum includes the mayors and mu- internet connection to the cyberlab nicipal managers of Williston, Carnar- pending the construction of the opti- von and the district municipalities of cal fibre link to Klerefontein and the Kareeberg and Karoo Hoogland, as SKA / MeerKAT site early next year. well as the principals and teachers of The South African SKA Project is also the local schools, representatives of working with the Northern Cape's the Agricultural Union, representa- Department of Education, Science and tives of local business and the tourism Technology to bring additional maths sector. The meeting was also at- and science teachers to the area. A tended by representatives of the programme is being launched to up- Tourism, Environmental Affairs and grade the knowledge and qualifica- Transport, Roads and Public Works tions of maths and science teachers in Departments of the Northern Cape Williston, Carnarvon, Van Wyksvlei Province. and Brandvlei. Inside this issue: Exciting progress at MeerKAT site and support base 2 KAT-7 (prototype) system engineering update 3 C-BASS dish installed at MeerKAT support base 4 4 SQUARE KILOMETRE ARRAY (SKA) SOUTH AFRICA (SKA) SOUTH ARRAY SQUARE KILOMETRE SKA South Africa celebrates the arrival of RFI-shielded containers Exciting progress at MeerKAT site and support base The MeerKAT dish construction shed is fully complete and now houses a 12 m diameter dish mould, which is in its final stages of completion. The project direc- tor and members of the Northern Cape Working Group visited the site on Thursday 28 May 2009 and were witness to the EMMS team MeerKAT dish construction shed Mobile water source at KAT-7 site polishing the mould. The sanding and polishing ensures the mould is smooth and accurate. Seven- teen metres (17 m) above the mould is the dish crane for lifting up the molded dishes and posi- tioning them onto the trailer. The trailer has been custom built for the purpose of transporting the completed dishes from the shed KAT-7 foundation in the foreground with Dr Bernie Fanaroff (SKA South Africa to the site (which is 6 km away). steamroller compacting gravel paving Project Director) testing out the indoor The trailer is 4 m wide and 15 m around foundations in the background dish crane long and was built by Ramkat Trailers in Cape Town. The KAT-7 site is easily accessible on the new 6 km road which links the construction shed to the site. The foundations for the seven antennas are also complete. The tender for the grid power MeerKAT dish mould Sanding and polishing the dish mould and overhead optical fibre has closed and a decision on the contractor is expected early in July 2009. The work will commence shortly after the contract has been awarded. A design and engineering services tender for MeerKAT has recently been advertised and the KAT-7 Artist's impression of MeerKAT dish being moved on the custom-built trailer reticulation tender will be adver- MeerKAT dish trailer (4 m wide x 15 m tised from 5 June 2009. long) Renovations at the SKA South Africa Support Base are now also Media coverage complete. Offices, workstations, a mechanical laboratory, a board- Read the article MeerKAT coming on track during IYA 2009 room and an indoor braai which was published in the May 2009 edition of Quest (barbecue) area are now avail- www.ska.ac.za/download/clipping_qu_may2009.pdf able. Page 2 KAT-7 (prototype) system engineering update Antennas the University of California at Berke- ley in the ROACH development. In The pedestals and other components return for our contribution to the of the seven KAT-7 prototype anten- design work, the South African pro- nas have been delivered to the tele- ject will get a percentage of the scope site in the Karoo during June boards once they have been manu- 2009. The team commissioned and factured. The hardware required for assembled an industrialization the first two working antennas (the model in Pretoria in order to mini- so-called "fringe finder") has been mize the amount of work that will delivered and early testing on that Diagram of KAT-7 system be required on site. The dishes will has started. The aim is to test these be moulded on site on a mould that boards on the GMRT during June/ has been set up to an accuracy of July 2009 prior to integrating them 0.5 mm. The first fully tested and into the fringe finder system. In commissioned antenna will be preparation for producing the boards handed over to SKA South Africa by for the KAT-7 hardware, the last the contractor BAE in early August manufacturing issues on the DBE are 2009. currently being ironed out. Feeds and cryogenic system Software development The design and development on the Since software is the "glue" that feed and cryogenic system have keeps the system together, the soft- been completed. The horn was ware group continually interacts tested at a testing range and actual with the rest of the technical team vs. theoretical performance corre- and scientists to ensure that the lated very well. An innovative OMT software will cater for everybody's (orthogonal mode transducer) design needs and will be what scientists meant that weight budgets could be expect. It is expected that a fully achieved. A significant amount of simulated system will be up and CAD image of completed KAT-7 antenna development went into the design running by the end of June. The and manufacturing of the cryogenic group has also been working on ways system. A test unit that has been to process the large amounts of data running for months provides a high from MeerKAT in real time and on level of confidence that the cryo- simulations to predict performance genic system will perform as speci- from antennas based on their beam fied. patterns and mount types. Radio Front End (RFE) XDM (Single prototype dish at HartRAO) Design reviews have been completed for all the "stages" of the RFE sys- A significant amount of effort has Testing of feed horn tem. The next step is to get an inte- gone into finalizing the work on XDM grated system in the lab to do per- to ensure that the team get the formance testing prior to integrating learning from the prototype that we with other subsystems or integrating set out to do, and documenting in the Karoo. Tests at temperatures these learning outcomes. This has below what is expected in the Karoo provided valuable insight into test- (tested to 50K, while 70K is ex- ing of subsystems prior to deploy- pected) proved that the Low Noise ment and yielded a new understand- Amplifier, integrated with the cryo- ing of the level of engineering and genic system, perform as predicted. concept exploration required to get a system running efficiently and Digital Back End (DBE) Mounted feed package reliably. SKA South Africa collaborates with To find out more about MeerKAT and read regular updates, visit www.ska.ac.za/meerkat Page 3 C-BASS dish installed at MeerKAT support base The South African SKA Project, scope and has project managed together with the Hartebeest- the testing, moving and installa- hoek Radio Astronomy Observa- tion of the antenna from tory and Rhodes University is Pretoria to Klerefontein. Another collaborating with Caltech, former Rhodes student, Oliver Oxford University and Manches- King, is building the receivers as ter University on the C-BASS (C- part of his PhD at Oxford Univer- Band All Sky Survey) project.