#02 2018
News
SARAO celebrates the successful completion of the SKA Telescope Manager Critical Design Review
The General Assembly of the International Astronomical Union to be hosted on African soil for the first time in 2024
US Embassy members visit Losberg and Carnarvon
European Union delegation visits SARAO Cape Town office
First cohort of SARAO-sponsored Northern Cape matrics progressing well at university
2017 SARAO bursary beneficiaries progress to second year of tertiary studies
Students from African countries complete third HartRAO AVN training school
Outreach
MeerLICHT telescope inaugurated
SARAO hosts Minister Kubayi-Ngubane and members of Parliamentary Portfolio Committee at Losberg
SARAO hosts Community Information sessions in the Northern Cape
South Africa’s initialling of the SKA Convention and Protocol texts takes place in Rome, Italy
Astronomy in South Africa is profiled at the IAU GA 2018 in Vienna
SARAO staff member leads 2018 NRAO NINE Program
Chinese Vice Minister for Science and Technology visits SARAO offices
Ghana and South Africa celebrate first success of African network of telescopes
Servitude establishment program
Latest developments on the land acquisitions programme
SARAO Human Capital Development Programme – Creating excellence in radio astronomy
SARAO Tech News
Ghana marks first spot on the AVN
Standing on the shoulders of giants: a South African’s contribution to global radio astronomy
HERA: Building to view the past
Across the Globe
SKA prototype dish assembled for the first time
First SKA-Low Prototype Station completed on site
SKA precursor upgrade makes telescope 10 times more powerful
Paving the way towards the SKA: astronomers detect signal from the first stars
Spain joins the SKA Organisation
New platform to showcase SKA’s major engineering progress
SKA treaty open for initialling
SARAO Science Engagement
RD9 Solutions: Introduction to Robotics
DST Mini Science Forum ignites conversations about big science
SARAO participates in Science Centre World Summit 2017
SARAO participates in third Science Forum South Africa
SARAO/SKA SA hosts DST Mini Science Forum in Northern Cape
Scifest Africa 2018
SARAO and Oculus announce partnership
SARAO wins Best Workshop prize at Scifest Africa 2018
NASA Electrical Engineer visits schools in Sutherland
SARAO participates in Public Communication of Science and Technology Conference in Dunedin, New Zealand
Participants graduate from Phase 1 of MAPPP NINE
SKA AVN MAPPP NINE Development Lab
MAPPP NINE expands to SKA AVN
IAU CAP 2018
SARAO participates in EuroScience Open Forum 2018 in Toulouse, France
National Science Week 2018
SARAO hosts 2018 SAASTA National Schools Debates Competition in the Northern Cape and North West
SARAO Big Data Africa School 2018 kicks off
Carnarvon High School teams through to National Competition of World Robot Olympiad 2018
SARAO Big Data Africa School 2018 ends on high note for African students
SARAO People
SARAO staffers shine at INCOSE SA 2018 conference
Five SARAO electrician trade artisan students attend media training in Carnarvon
SARAO Junior engineer wins Best Poster Presentation at UCT Engineering Research Expo
Dr Bonita de Swardt presents at plenary session at Grand Challenges Partners meeting in Kenya
SARAO bursary holder wins first prize in AT-RASC student paper competition
Dr Aletha de Witt elected to the IAU commission on astrometry
Dr Rob Adam inducted as a Fellow of the South African Academy of Engineering
SARAO bursary funded students selected for 2018/19 CSIRO scholarship
Junior Science Process Developer wins Thomson Reuters Award
Brendan Swarts – Electrician Artisan student
Morgan Daba – Electrician Artisan student
Marthinus Steyn – Telescope Operator
Griet Tobias – Housekeeper
Jan Mouers – General Worker
Mathakane Molewa – HERA Construction Supervisor
Malissa Pietersen – Procurement Officer (Site)
Lourencia Lyon – HERA General Worker
Peter van Wyngaarden – HERA General Worker
Bradwin Vermeulen – HERA General Worker
Tyrone Adams – HERA General Worker
Levurd Vaarland – HERA General Worker
R. Sean Oliphant – Mathematics teacher at Carnarvon High School
SARAO celebrates the successful completion of the SKA Telescope Manager Critical Design Review
SARAO News #02 2018
The South African Radio Astronomy Observatory (SARAO) celebrates after the SKA Telescope Manager Critical Design Review has been completed.
SARAO made a significant contribution to the Telescope Manager consortium, which is one of 12 engineering consortia representing 500 engineers in 20 countries building the SKA Observatory and Telescopes. Nine of the consortia focused on a component of the telescope, each critical to the overall success of the project, while three others focused on developing advanced instrumentation for the telescope. The Telescope Manager consortium was itself comprised of nine institutions in seven countries.
The Telescope Manager consortium was formed in 2013 and was tasked with designing the crucial software that will control and monitor the SKA Observatory and Telescopes, essentially forming its central nervous system. This implies that the Telescope Manager element is connected to all other elements such as the correlator, science processor, dishes and low frequency aperture arrays, and coordinates their actions.
The Telescope Manager will receive thousands of sensor updates per second, and needs to figure out what actions to take based on this information. The Telescope Manager also provides key stakeholders with user interfaces, for example it will provide operators with a view of the health and status of each telescope.
The design of the SKA Telescope Manager has recently been subjected to a Critical Design Review (CDR), and has subsequently passed this stage gate, achieving a CDR closure certificate. The review was held in April of this year, was led by the SKA Organisation, and included a panel of international experts in the field. The Telescope Manager consortium is the first consortium out of twelve to pass this rigorous review.
SARAO led the Telescope Manager System Engineering team involved in the design of this vital component, and also participated in the Management work package. SARAO team members acted as the primary authors of a range of important design artefacts, such as requirement and compliance specifications, interface control documents, construction and verification plans to name a few.
Ray Brederode, Functional Manager for Software at SARAO, and his team comprising Paul Swart, Lize van der Heever and Gerhard le Roux, all from the Software Team at SARAO, participated in the design of the Telescope Manager element.
“South Africa can be very proud of its contribution to the SKA Telescope Manager design, proving that we have world class engineers able to work on complex problems, like designing the world’s largest radio telescope,” says Brederode.
“We are proud that the MeerKAT CAM system was selected as the reference design for TM. We also congratulate Professor Yashwant Gupta of GMRT in India, the TM Consortium Chair, for leading the first consortium to successfully achieve CDR,” says Dr Rob Adam, Managing Director of SARAO.
While the Telescope Manager consortium now formally ceases to exist, the SKA Organisation continues to work with SARAO and the other former consortium members on the System Design and the SKA construction proposal, where its expertise will be required to ensure that the system design works in conjunction with the other elements.
Telescope Consortium members included the the South African Radio Astronomy Observatory (SARAO); the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Council (CSIRO) in Australia; the National Research Council of Canada (NRC), TCS Research and Innovation and Persistent Systems in India; Italy’s National Institute for Astrophysics (INAF); Portugal’s ENGAGE SKA Consortium through Instituto de Telecomunicações (IT) and the School of Sciences of Porto University; and the UK’s Astronomy Technology Centre funded by the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC).
Big Data Attendees at the one-day work session which was held on 11 July 2017 at the Ministry of Environment, Science, Technology and Innovation in Ghana to kick off the High Performance Computing training programme in Ghana.
Members of the nine SKA African partner countries concluded the Fourth Ministerial Meeting on the SKA in Accra, Ghana by signing a memorandum of understanding to collaborate on radio astronomy.
Minister of Science and Technology Naledi Pandor watches on as the President of the Republic of Ghana, His Excellency Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo cuts the ribbon at the launch of the Ghana Radio Astronomy Observatory.
Media coverage
The launch of the Ghana Radio Astronomy Observatory was covered 119 times in the media between 23 and 25 August 2017:
In Ghana: 24 times
In South Africa: 36 times
In other African countries: 8 times
Internationally: 51 times
The value of these placements is R6 983 234.17.
Last Updated on November 19, 2018
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