In the wake of the crash that caused the sad (yet spectacular) collapse of the Arecibo Observatory Telescope in Puerto Rico earlier this month, it appears there is a plan to launch one of the world’s most recognizable instruments for research into reconstruct the deep space.
Puerto Rico’s El Nuevo Día news reports that Puerto Rican Governor Wanda Vázquez Garced has signed an executive order setting aside $ 8 million for the reconstruction of the enormous single-court radio telescope. The order also provides for the removal of debris from the December 1 crash and according to the report, the telescope site is indicated as a ‘historic zone’.
The observatory’s 900-ton platform, which hangs 150 meters above the giant 305-meter dish, was captured on dramatic drones, and took place on December 1 when several support cables broke, causing the platform to reach the bottom of the dish case. The observatory has been closed since August due to an initial cable cut. This earlier accident resulted in an investigation and consequently planned for a controlled demolition; one operator never got the chance to run it.
The Arecibo Observatory was commissioned by the American National Science Foundation (NSF) in 1963 and collected nearly 60 years of radio data used to make a variety of observations, containing the first evidence of the existence of exoplanets in the world. . The telescope has also become an integral part of NASA’s search for near-Earth objects.
In her order, Vázquez Garced said the $ 8 million would be used to dispose of rubbish for the remains of the collapsed telescope, as well as the design of a new radio telescope to replace it. It leaves money to construct an actual replacement – a much more expensive proposal than $ 8 million – a matter of future budget priorities of the NSF, which receives its research grants from Congress.
For the coming year, congressional funding for the NSF currently depends on the fate of the $ 1.4 trillion bill that President Donald Trump recently signed – with a number of new reservations – before returning to Congress for resubmission. Science reported that the NSF’s share was included in the bill with the request that the agency set out its plans for the website. “In particular, lawmakers want to know how NSF will decide whether to build a new observatory, and the estimated cost of such a facility,” the report said.