The huge Square Kilometre Array radio telescope will use the associated technology of the MeerKAT as a precursor instrument. The country of South Africa, along with its eight African partners had all gone about winning the right to host over and above seventy per cent of the project in total, with many patent registrations protecting this technology.
The telescope site is also near the Carnarvon in the Great Karoo. With reference to the report, the two contracts that are due to be awarded before the end of April were actually for the antennas’ radio signal receiving dishes, or its foundations, as well as a security contract for the site. There is also another contract which includes the installation of over 200 kilometres of optical fibre cabling on site that would very likely be awarded during the year’s second quarter.
South Africa stands to hugely benefit from these contracts and will be a welcomed boost to the economy that has suffered under industrial action of its key sectors as well as maladministration of state funds, leaving provinces declaring bankruptcy. This will also provide a lot of jobs in the country that has an alarmingly high and continually increasing unemployment rate. This will help South Africa to compete on international and global levels too.
This technology is very important for many different aspects of foreign and local interests and has seen many claims on the intellectual property rights that claim authorship of this technology. It was a difficult bidding process but South Africa managed to get through the other side successfully and land the coveted project and contract. It would seem as though only time would be able to tell of its success. It has all the infrastructure needed to pull this off along with all the human resource talent, otherwise the country wouldn’t have been awarded the contract in the first place.