The National Research Foundation (NRF) has made R64 million available to the South African National Research and Education Network (Sanren), for the construction of an Internet broadband fibre-optic link to the national fibre-optic backbone.
This follows long funding negotiations between stakeholders last year, after Telkom demanded R36 million to connect the Southern African Large Telescope (SALT) to Cape Town.
According to the NRF, this will link SALT to the national fibre-optic backbone, improving data transmission to the South African Astronomical Observatory (SAAO), where data from SALT is analysed.
SALT is the largest single optical telescope in the southern hemisphere. It is able to record distant stars, galaxies and quasars a billion times too faint to be seen with the unaided eye – as faint as a candle flame at the distance of the moon, says the NRF.
At the moment, information gathered by SALT has to be cut onto CD and then physically transported to Cape Town before scientists from around the world are able to access the data and work on it.
“The link will also bring fast Internet connectivity to the remote site in the Northern Cape outside Carnarvon, where SA is building MeerKAT, the Karoo Array Telescope, and where it hopes to build the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) telescope, should it win the bid.”
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