In the aftermath of the accident that caused the sad (but spectacular) collapse of the Arecibo Observatory telescope in Puerto Rico earlier this month, a plan appears to be emerging to develop one of the world’s most recognizable deep-space exploration tools. reconstruct.
Puerto Rico’s The new day News reports that Puerto Rican Governor Wanda Vázquez Garced has signed an executive order setting aside $ 8 million to rebuild the massive single-dish radio telescope. The order also provides for the removal of debris from the Dec. 1 collapse and designates the telescope site as a “historic zone,” the report said.
Caught in dramatic drone images, the observatory’s 900-ton platform, suspended 150 meters above the gigantic 305-meter saucer, gave way on Dec. 1 when several support cables broke, causing the platform to sink to the saucer surface below. The observatory had been closed since August due to a first cable break. That earlier accident led to an investigation and then plans for controlled demolition; one operator never got the chance to run.
The Arecibo Observatory, owned by the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF), was commissioned in 1963 and collected radio data for nearly 60 years that was used to make a variety of observations, including the world’s first evidence of its existence Of exoplanets. The telescope also became an integral part of NASA’s search for objects near Earth.
In her order, Vázquez Garced said the $ 8 million would be used to fund the waste disposal for the remains of the collapsed telescope, as well as design a new radio telescope to replace it. That leaves the funding to build an actual replacement – a much more expensive proposition than $ 8 million – a matter of future budgeting priorities from the NSF, which receives its research grants from Congress.
For the coming year, Congress funding of the NSF currently depends on the fate of the $ 1.4 trillion that President Donald Trump recently signed – with some new terms – before returning to Congress for resubmission. Science reports that the NSF’s share of the funds included on the bill comes with a request that the agency outline its plans for the site. In particular, lawmakers want to know how NSF will decide whether to build a new observatory and what the estimated cost of such a facility is, the report notes.