Fanaroff ideal head for complex SKA Project

MICHAEL BELLING

Dr Bernie Fanaroff is an astronomer and astronomers see further than most. He can also look back a long way on a lifetime of astonishing achievement, with more still in the offing.

Many people have a career that can be summarised in a single phrase. Fanaroff requires a list – project director of the South African Square Kilometre Array Project, astronomer, trade union leader, government official and management consultant.

Last year he was awarded South Africa’s highest honour, the Order of Mapungubwe, given for excellence and exceptional achievement.

He was recognised for his contribution to astronomy and dedication in raising South Africa’s international stature as a world class research destination, particularly in securing the African share of the SKA Project.

The concept of the SKA was proposed in the 1990s to take radio astronomy to a new level, “to build a telescope that could see back to before when the first stars were in the universe”.

He added that calculations had shown the required size was a square kilometre, too large for a single dish. Many smaller dishes would be required over the area, connected together, a kind of galaxy of dishes, with 3 000 envisaged in the final project in several countries in Africa.

It will probably have as least as much traffic as the Internet today. Almost three quarters of the giant radio telescope’s infrastructure will be in South Africa.

The government was squarely behind the multi-billion rand international project; the bulk of the funding will come from overseas.

Fanaroff was appointed in 2003 to head South Africa’s bid for the SKA, in the face of strong international competition. The bid documentation comprised 11 reports containing 27 000 pages.

In May last year it was announced that South Africa had won the bulk of the project, with a smaller portion going to Australia. The project will take until 2027 to complete and operate for at least another 50 years after that.

He does not believe that possible fracking in the Karoo is likely to affect the SKA, which is protected both by law and undertakings by Shell, the company that will perform the fracking exploration.

Funding is a problem that has arisen, because of the complexity of the project. Funding has been capped for phase 1and further negotiations are under way for later phases.

Fanaroff terms the project “iconic” and a “wonderful opportunity for South Africa”.

Because of his training and background, including top-level government contacts, as well as being an experienced negotiator and strategic thinker, he was regarded as the ideal person to lead this mammoth project.

Born in Johannesburg, Fanaroff obtained a degree in theoretical physics at Wits in 1970, followed by a doctorate in radio astronomy from Cambridge in 1974. During his time at Cambridge, he and fellow scientist Julia Riley developed a classification system for very distant radio sources, the Fanaroff-Riley class I and II, which is still used today.

Soon after his return to South Africa he left his academic career to work for the trade union movement, helping to establish the National Union of Metalworkers (Numsa), one of the largest unions in the country and served on the Cosatu executive.

Fanaroff served as deputy director-general in the office of President Nelson Mandela from 1994 to 1999.  He was also head of the Reconstruction and Development Programme office at that time.

He is a non-executive director of Eskom and serves on the board of the South African Biodiversity Institute.

He is a visiting professor of physics at Oxford University, a fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society, a member of the International Astronomical Union and a founder member of the SA Academy for Science.

He terms his Jewish identification “cultural rather than religious”, with a general interest in the Yiddish heritage of his parents, who came from Latvia and Lithuania.