3,000 telescopes for the Square Kilometre Array will cost an international consortium around $2 billion, this week, the Australian government announced $40.2 million towards securing Australia's bid for the site.
Credit: SPDO/TDP/DRAO/Swinburne Astronomy Productions
SYDNEY: Science was neither a winner nor loser in most areas of the Federal budget handed down this week, but at least some of the funds allocated are contingent on the success of a bid to build the world's biggest telescope in Australia and New Zealand.
Harvey Butcher, an astronomy professor and director of the Australian National University's Research School of Astronomy and Astrophysics in Canberra said it was a "workman-like budget" but astronomy had come out relatively well.
"It did the kind of thing we expected and hoped it would, it was nothing new and wonderful," he told Cosmos.
Australia's Federal government did announce A$40.2 million over four years to support the country's bid for the Square Kilometre Array, a 3,000-dish array planned to be built in either Australia and New Zealand, or in South Africa.
The radiotelescope array would be the biggest ever built, offering scientists unique opportunities in radio astronomy viewing at a hefty US$2 billion price tag.
Need to win it to be in it
But A$34 million of the recently-announced funding was contingent on Australia winning the bid for the site, something that won't be known until at least a quarter of the way through 2012, CSIRO SKA director, Brian Boyle, told Cosmos.
"It is exactly the level the international project team had indicated would be required [to host the site] and is no more and no less than was requested [from the government]," said Boyle, adding that he was "delighted with the outcome".
"It represents a real opportunity for Australian science and engineering in the next phase which is the pre-construction phase of the project," said Boyle.
If South Africa wins the bid next year, the Australian Square Kilometre Array project team would have to reapply for other funding, he said.
Six million now, more later?
Six million in funding was available now to help Australia's secure the bid through "site characterisation", he said. The involves preparations at the proposed site in Western Australia, where two pathfinder telescopes, the Australian SKA Pathfinder and Murchison Widefield Array, are in various stages of construction.
Geotechnical surveys and support and communication for the site, which would eventually house 1,500 telescopes in a five square kilometre area, was also on the cards for these funds, said Boyle. The final bid from Australia-New Zealand was due to be lodged on 15 September 2011.
When asked for his response to the SKA funding, Butcher said the bid involved a lot of international politics. "When something is this expensive science takes a back seat," he said. "I think the science will be great in either country."
