SKA and aviation sector looking at flight impacts
Officials from the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) radio telescope and the aviation sector are currently engaging to discuss the possible impact of the project’s development on national flights in the area.
The SKA project is an international effort to build the world’s largest radio telescope, with plans to eventually have over a square kilometre of collecting area.
Because of this, the Department of Science and Technology has introduced a number of regulations to prevent outside interference from impacting its activities.
It was reported this week that one of the possible outcomes could see flights between Johannesburg and Cape Town diverted, leading to longer travel times.
However, Dr Adrian Tiplady, head of strategy and business processes at the SKA said that this is not necessarily the case.
Speaking to BusinessTech, Tiplady said that there had been a number of misconceptions during the discussion process which has created a narrative of a ‘black hole in the middle of the Northern Cape’.
“This is quite far from the truth,” he said.
“The regulations have had a variety of inputs from various stakeholders – including the communications sector and the aviation sector – and officially came into force in December 2018.”
“They explicitly exclude the spectrum bands used by the various aeronautical sources.”
The rest of the regulations provide for a permit system which tries to create an optimal operating environment, Tiplady said.
The SKA team also recognises that there are some essential services operating in the area (such as the aviation ) and it permits these frequencies in the area.
Aviation
Tiplady said that separate from the regulations, the SKA has been engaging directly with the aviation sector and with both the Department of Transport, and the Department of Science and Technology.
“What we had agreed with the aviation sector is to not make the regulations applicable to them, but instead engage directly with them,” he said.
These engagements would try to understand what the impact is and see how best the SKA and the aviation sector could jointly mitigate this impact through a variety of measures, which would ultimately be enforced through the civil aviation authority, he said
While Tiplady noted that he is not an aviation expert, he said that some of the possible measures could include:
- Implementing a standard operating procedure within a certain radius of the SKA where power levels are reduced;
- Implementing a standard operating procedure within a certain radius of the SKA where communications take place before and after entering the space;
- Possible optimisation of the flight path.
“There are a variety of mitigation measures and we aren’t expecting aviation authorities to start implementing major diversions of flights around the much larger protected area,” he said.
“It really is a small area and what we are trying to do now is quantify that impact and put a number on it.
“Once this is done, the technical working group can start looking creatively at some of the mitigation measures.”
Tiplady said that this is not as simple as what has been reported on, but that the SKA and aviation sector are both on the same page and are working cooperatively.
“Whatever the outcome is, it will be a jointly arrived at instead of something that we develop in isolation and enforce onto the aviation sector,” he said.
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