The Eye of the Earth Has a Chinese Antenna (Great, Chinese Science and Technology)

On the 6th, the first prototype "reflector antenna prototype" (SKA-P) of the square kilometer array radio telescope (SKA), an international scientific project led by the Chinese side and known as the "eye of the earth", was delivered from the 54th Institute of China Electronics Technology Group Corporation (referred to as the 54th Institute of China Electronics Technology Corporation). This indicates that China has begun to play a leading and leading role in the research and development of SKA core equipment, and has successfully provided "antenna solutions" for the world in international scientific projects ".

SKA is the world's largest synthetic aperture radio telescope planned by the international astronomical community. It is jointly funded by many countries around the world. The SKA site is located in the radio quiet areas of 8 countries in Australia, South Africa and southern Africa. Its receiving area is about 1 square kilometer, which is equivalent to 140 football fields.

After the completion of SKA, the sensitivity of EVLA, the largest radio telescope array, will be increased by about 50 times, and the sky survey speed will be increased by about 10000 times, which provides an important opportunity for mankind to understand the universe.

SKA is committed to revealing the scientific mysteries of the dawn of the universe and the cradle of life, which are of common concern to mankind, and answering the basic questions of the universe, such as the first dawn of the universe, the formation of structure, and the origin of life, which is expected to open up a new era of human understanding of the universe.

In 2011, seven countries, including China, established the SKA Organization (SKAO), an independent legal entity. At present, SKAO has 10 member countries including Australia, Canada, China, India, Italy, New Zealand, South Africa, Sweden, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom, and is headquartered in the United Kingdom. The SKA project is divided into a construction preparation phase, a construction phase and an operation phase (expected to take 50 years), and is expected to start procurement bidding in 2019 and full construction in 2020.

It is understood that the design and construction of the SKA-P is led by China Electric Power 54. Its conceptual design was put forward in May 2015. At the international selection meeting of antenna design scheme held in November of the same year, the international evaluation committee composed of several experts unanimously recommend the Chinese design scheme as the only R & D scheme of the SKA-P based on the comprehensive consideration of design maturity, construction and installation plan, cost and other factors.

In 2017, the Joint Laboratory of Radio Astronomy Technology (JLRAT), jointly established by the 54 Institute of China Electric Power and the National Astronomical Observatory, became the new lead unit of the SKA Antenna Work Package Alliance, and jointly carried out the SKA reflector antenna research and development with 20 scientific research institutions in South Africa, Germany, Italy and other countries, and undertook SKA-P research and development work.

According to Zhang Guihua, director of China Electric 54, the performance of reflector antennas is related to the overall performance of SKA and the realization of its main scientific objectives. SKA puts forward extremely high requirements for antenna technical indicators and engineering construction. On the one hand, it needs to meet the performance indicators such as high sensitivity, high pointing accuracy, high pointing consistency, ultra-wide band, high electromagnetic shielding and large field of view, and at the same time, it needs to meet the requirements of low manufacturing cost, fast construction and easy maintenance.

Through 5 years of technical research, JLRAT led the joint international team through standardization, modularization, refinement, integration design, so that the SKA-P finally technically meet all the technical indicators of SKA.

The design life of the antenna is 50 years, which is 2/3 of the weight of the regular antenna, and has the advantages of low power consumption, low cost, easy installation, easy transportation and mass production, which lays a strong foundation for the smooth implementation of the SKA project in the future.

Experts pointed out that the successful development of the SKA-P is a major achievement in the research and development of the SKA project and is an important milestone. As an increasingly important pole in SKA's global diversified innovation landscape, China will continue to actively integrate into the global innovation network in the future, taking the SKA International Science Project as an opportunity to promote Chinese solutions, Chinese technology, and Chinese radio astronomy to gradually move to the center of the world stage.

In recent years, many radio telescopes have been built in China, and astronomy research is gradually becoming the first-class.