The Square Kilometer Array (Ska) will be the largest radio telescope in the world, under construction in South Africa and Australia, which will allow you to see existing stars and galaxies a few minutes after the Big Bang. The disc antenna, with a diameter of 15 meters, was assembled in China, and was built with the significant contribution of Italy, through the National Institute of Astrophysics (Inaf) and the Mediterranean Aerospace Society (Sam). For the president of INAF, Nichi D'Amico, the Italian participation in this phase, "is crucial at a time when we are approaching the signing of the international treaty that will start the construction of the gigantic plant". This is "a futuristic project, which will see the big data resources of the country explode, and of which we plan to establish significant segments in Italy".
Crossing 18 time zones, in the last 19 months the groups involved have done a huge job to build the first parabola of the first phase of the SKA telescope, which includes 133 antennas in South Africa, to which must be added the 64 MeerKAT telescope plates already installed in the desert. of the Karoo. Italy has been entrusted with the design and production of an electromechanical component that will support the antenna receivers and move them to align them with the optics of the dish, depending on the observations.
“It is a very innovative component of the record and it has to move with high precision to position the receivers,” noted Renato Aurigemma, who coordinated the Sam team in Naples. The technicians of China Electronics Technology Group Corporation 54 in China, in addition to assembling the components, produced the main reflector, the sub-reflector, the backup structure and the dish pedestal, while the German Mt Mechatronics produced the hardware and the precision electronics designed to move the dish.