South African contractor Concor, in partnership with OptiPower, has been awarded a R212-million contract for the structural foundations and associated infrastructure for 24 additional dishes for South Africa’s MeerKAT radio telescope array. MeerKAT currently has 64 dishes. The partners have also been contracted to design another 109 dish foundations and associated infrastructure. The project is currently in the design stage, with construction due to start in June. MeerKAT is situated in a remote part of the Karoo region, in the Northern Cape province. A fully functional instrument in its own right, it is also a precursor to the international Square Kilometre Array (SKA) radio telescope and will, in due course, be integrated into it. (The SKA will be co-hosted by South Africa and Australia and these contracts may, in reality, be the first construction contracts for the South African-based SKA itself.)
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