Name and Location
MeerKAT telescope project, Northern Cape, South Africa.

Client
The Square Kilometre Array South Africa (SKA SA) is the agency that drove South Africa’s bid to host the €1.5-billion international SKA radio telescope and the MeerKAT programme.

Project Description
South Africa’s MeerKAT radio telescope array is intended to be a precursor of the international SKA radio telescope. The MeerKAT evolved from the original idea of a Karoo Array Telescope (KAT).

The reference design specification for the full MeerKAT is 64 offset dishes, each with a diameter of 13.5 m, with single-pixel wideband feeds covering the 500 MHz to 2.5 GHz frequency range. The design means that there are no struts over the dish, which can reduce or scatter incoming radio waves, thus increasing the sensitivity of the antenna.

The completed MeerKAT will have a central core, but some dishes are almost 10 km apart, thus replicating the SKA on a small scale.

It will also facilitate the installation of multiple receiver systems in the primary and secondary focal areas and is the reference design for the midband SKA concept.

The MeerKAT will be delivered in three phases.

The first phase – the MeerKAT Precursor Array, known as KAT-7 and which comprises seven 12-m-diameter composite parabolic dishes at the Karoo site – was completed in 2010.

This prototype interferometer array serves as an engineering test-bed for technologies and systems and as an operational radio telescope. MeerKAT is designed to be integrated into the international Square Kilometre Array (SKA) radio telescope, which will be cohosted by South Africa and Australia.

Value
The estimated cost is R900-million.

Duration
The commissioning of MeerKAT is scheduled for 2014/15, with the array coming on line for science operations in 2016. This phase includes all antennas, but only the first receiver will be fitted and a processing bandwidth of 750 MHz will be available.

For MeerKAT Phase 2 and Phase 3, the remaining two receivers will be fitted and the processing bandwidth will be increased to at least 2 GHz, and later to 4 GHz.

Latest developments
The MeerKAT radio telescope array programme should be back on schedule within a few months. This assurance was given to Engineering News Online by SKA SA associate director: science and technology professor Justin Jonas.

Early last month, Science and Technology Minister Naledi Pandor expressed concern about progress on the country's flagship science programme. "If there is a timeline, we must adhere to it or explain to the South African people why the delay is happening," she said.

"The first dish is not fully qualified yet and we had hoped it would be," explains Jonas. "There has consequently been a slippage with the second dish. We're working very closely with the contractor. They will get back on to the production curve within the next few months."

He points out that the first two dishes are effectively prototype units. "Getting their engineering processes going properly has taken more time than expected."

Another factor is the country's requirement that 75% of the work be done locally. This necessitates agreements, alliances and contracts between the overseas suppliers and local enterprises, and negotiating and implementing these has also taken longer than expected.

All the other subsystems are on or ahead of schedule. Two receivers have been fitted to the first dish and all of the digital back-end electronics, data analysis systems and control software have been installed at the Karoo site. This equipment forms the Receptor Test System that will be used to qualify the first two dishes as soon as they become available.

Meanwhile, astronomers in a continental European country have asked their national science funding agency to buy a suite of receivers to install on MeerKAT dishes. Each dish is designed to accommodate four receivers, but South Africa is fitting only three, leaving space for international partners to install the fourth, if they prefer to do so.

Key Contracts and Suppliers
Group Five Coastal (building foundations); Schneider Electric South Africa (building management system); Stratosat Datacom (part of Germany’s Schauenburg Group), with its technology partners, General Dynamics Satcom, of the US, and Vertex Antennentechnik, of Germany (design, construction, installation and commissioning of antennas); Efficient Engineering (antenna pedestals and yokes); Tricom Structures (backup structures for dishes); Titanus Slew Rings (main azimuth bearings); National Research Council of Canada (low-noise amplifiers); Oxford Cryosystems (cryogenic cooling system) and Brink & Heath Civils (foundations).

On Budget and on Time?
The project is on schedule.

Contact Details for Project Information
MeerKAT engineering office, tel +27 21 506 7300 or fax +27 21 506 7375.
Group Five Coastal, tel +27 31 5690300 or fax +27 31 569 0420.
Schneider Electric South Africa, tel +27 11 254 6400,
fax +27 11 254 6700/6704 or email enquiries@za.schneider-electric.com.
Stratosat Datacom, tel +27 11 974 0006 or fax +27 11 974 0068.
General Dynamics Satcom technologies, tel +1 828 464 4141, fax +1 828 464 4147 or email info@gdsatcom.com.
Brink & Heath Civils, tel +27 21 551 2640, fax +27 21 551 2977 or email admin@brinkheath.co.za.
Efficient Engineering, tel +27 11 928 4800, fax +27 11 974 8719 or email info@efficient.co.za.
Tricom Structures, tel +27 12 803 0041, fax +27 12 803 6040 or email info@tricom1.co.za.
Titanus Slew Rings, Shabana Cotwal, +27 11 974 7017, fax+ 27 11 974 8109 or email shabana@tsr.co.za.
National Research Council of Canada, tel +1 613 993 9101, fax +1 613 952 9907 or email info@nrc-cnrc.gc.ca.
Oxford Cryosystems, tel +44 1993 883488.