The Minister of Science and Technology, Naledi Pandor, and a delegation of senior officials from South Africa, will today meet the Namibian Parliamentary Committee on Science and Technology to discuss and grow support for Namibia's bid to host the Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA).
Minister Pandor will also use the visit to Namibia for further discussions on the African Very Long Baseline Interferometry Network, and to brief her Namibian counterpart, Minister David Namwandi, on matters related to the Square Kilometre Array radio telescope.
South Africa enjoys good science and technology relations with Namibia, and the meeting will also reflect on both bilateral and multilateral partnerships in which the two countries are involved.
The CTA will be the world’s biggest gamma ray observatory, 10 times more powerful than current instruments. It will consist of two arrays, one in each hemisphere. A decision on where to host it is due to be announced later this year. Namibia is competing against Chile to host the southern hemisphere portion of the CTA near the remote railway town of Aus.
The CTA consortium currently consists of over 1 000 scientists working in more than 170 research institutes in 28 countries (Argentina, Armenia, Australia, Austria, Brazil, Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, India, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Namibia, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Slovenia, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, the UK and the USA).
The South African institutions involved are North-West University, the University of the Free State, the University of Johannesburg, and the University of the Witwatersrand.
South Africa and Namibia have a standing programme for collaboration on gamma ray detection. Namibia is the home of the gamma ray observatory called the High Energy Stereoscopic System (HESS). South African scientists will undoubtedly benefit from Namibia's success if it wins the bid to host the CTA.
Hosting the CTA in Namibia will potentially assist in developing the host town of Aus and the surrounding area. The CTA will bring real scientific advantages and further develop Namibia to become one of the key players on the African continent in gamma ray astronomy. It will also help develop and improve capacity in other fields of science.
Hosting the CTA will enable Namibia to move further towards becoming a knowledge-based economy. South Africa has been assisting Namibia to bid for the CTA project through a joint task team that comprises experts from South Africa and Namibia.
Enquiries:
Lunga Ngqengelele
Ministerial Spokesperson
Cell: 082 566 0446
Tel: 012 843 6799
