The South African Cabinet on Thursday approved the establishment of an inter-Ministerial committee to “oversee the final preparations for the award of the bid for the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) radio telescope.” The decision to create the committee was made after a discussion of the progress of the country’s SKA bid.

“The bid will cost R1,6-billion over a three-year period,” reported the statement on Thursday’s Cabinet meeting issued by the government’s communications agency, GCIS.

South Africa and Australia are the two countries short-listed to host the €1,5-billion international radio telescope array project, which will be the world’s biggest such instrument. The decision on where to site the SKA will not be taken until 2011 or 2012, construction should start in 2013, with the instrument only achieving initial operating capability in 2016 at the earliest and it will be fully ready for operation only by 2021.

Should South Africa win the bid, the core of the SKA would be sited in the Northern Cape province, with outstations elsewhere in the country and spread across eight other African countries. “South Africa has developed a partnership” with these countries, noted the statement, “to locate SKA stations in each country”. The countries concerned are Botswana, Ghana, Kenya, Madagascar, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia and Zambia.

The Cabinet stated that the SKA project will benefit the development of South Africa’s information and communication technology (ICT) infrastructure, as well as stimulating postgraduate student training in astronomy, engineering and ICT across the continent.

To date, 19 countries (and 55 scientific institutions) have joined the project, and several more are likely to join, but it is currently expected that 80% of the cost will be carried by just nine countries. The US will provide 40% of the total cost, while eight European countries – France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, and the UK – will together bear another 40%.

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