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One of the RFI-shielded containers arrive at SAAO |
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The last of the four containers placed into position |
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An open RFI-shielded container |
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Inside finishing of the RFI-shielded containers |
An informal function took place at the South African Astronomical Observatory (SAAO) in Observatory, Cape Town, SAAO on Friday, 29 May 2009, to celebrate the arrival of four RFI-shielded containers for the Karoo Array Telescope (MeerKAT) project.
Shipped over from The Netherlands, these containers are especially designed and outfitted to accommodate all the electronic equipment that the MeerKAT team needs to control, monitor and operate the radio astronomy telescopes that are being built in the Northern Cape Province. The initial KAT-7 and the subsequent MeerKAT radio telescopes are pathfinders for the Square Kilometre Array (SKA).
The purchase of RFI-shielded containers was seen as the perfect solution to obtain a portable shielded environment within the extremely tight timelines of the project. Furthermore, they will enable the MeerKAT engineers to conduct early integration in Cape Town, at a convenient and accessible venue, before all the infrastructure at the Karoo site has been installed.
Comtest, the Dutch company that designed and built the containers, is a world leader in the development and production of shielded rooms. They have participated in large turnkey projects such as ESA ESTEC's Maxwell EMC test chamber and ASTRON's LOFAR project. Richard Lord, one of the telescope system engineers, helped to finalise the container design specifications and, together with Carel van der Merwe, SKA SA Infrastructure/Ancillary system engineer, attended the acceptance testing procedure at the Comtest factory.
The shielding effectiveness of the four containers exceeds 120dB when measured up to 3 GHz. TF Design have been subcontracted to install a cooling solution for the computer cabinets inside the containers, since the electronic equipment generates a lot of heat.
Ian Newlands, Managing Director of International Forwarding Service Cape (Pty) Ltd, was responsible for coordinating the shipment of the containers to South Africa, their clearance through customs, and their transport to the SAAO. Ian, a passionate amateur astronomer, said that he had frequently arranged the transport of equipment out to the South African Large Telescope (SALT) in Sutherland, and that he was excited to be part of this project.
Cynthia Strydom, personal assistant to the current director of the SAAO, Dr Phil Charles, remarked that the presence of the containers on the grounds of the observatory, the media attention around the MeerKAT and SKA projects, and the fact that 2009 has been declared the International Year of Astronomy have all combined to spark a great deal of interest in both optical and radio astronomy.
According to Willem Esterhuyse, the MeerKAT Project Manager, the Site Services Container and the Antenna Services Container will be shipped to the Karoo site by the end of August 2009. The Computing Container and the Control & Monitoring Container will remain in Cape Town until early next year in order to complete integration work for the next phase of the KAT-7 project.
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