Penticton Western News, October 18, 2013

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NEWS PENTICTON WESTERN

www.pentictonwesternnews.com

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news

VOL. 47 ISSUE 84

10

Safety issues stall KVR Trail planning

business

Cents nip Vees 3-2 in double OT

21 page

FRIDAY, October 18, 2013

11

Tinhorn Creek up for environmental award

entertainment Okanagan Symphony tuned up for another season

OOPS!

Wind gust puts dent in landing of expensive reflector at observatory PENTICTON WESTERN

NEWS

different attitude, the wind caught it a bit and when it came down again that inertia An errant gust of wind popped the dish and it lost its is blamed for the in-flight shape,” said project manager damage to a 195-squareDave Hovey of the DRAO metre radio telescope shortly after the incident. reflector being airlifted into “What we were doing has place at the Dominion Radio never been done before and Astrophysical Observatory sometimes you have great (DRAO) Thursday morning. successes and sometimes As the Kamov twinyou have little glitches. rotor helicopter long-lining “This was a dramatic the structure from nearby glitch but a glitch none the Okanagan Falls approached less. the drop-off point, the “I’m not actually convex reflector suddenly discouraged or anything, went vertical. we’re just going to get up Several pieces of the dish and dust ourselves off and could be seen falling before go at it again. the VIH helicopter pilot was “This is just a misstep and able to regain control. we’re going to recalibrate Once it was on the and we’ll be back.” ground, scientists and The reflector is a key part technical staff from the of a dish prototype concept observatory quickly gathered for the Square Kilometre around the large sphere to Array (SKA), described as assess the damage which one of the largest and most included several large cracks ambitious scientific projects and buckling of the thin, in history. metallised carbon-fibre It is the third in a series of surface National Research Council The reflector was designs. built in a large facility in When the SKA is the industrial sector of eventually built in Africa Okanagan Falls and the total and Australia, scientists hope estimated cost, including it will provide information moving it to the field where about the formation of the pedestal it will be placed galaxies, how dark energy on is located, is about is accelerating expansion of $300,000. the universe and life on other “The dishes are very planets. thin (five millimetres) and According to Hovey there so what happened when the was consideration given to helicopter slowed it looks using a truck to transport like one of the lines went adimension the dish but the A whole new inlogistics hearing little slack and it got up in a favoured the aerial route. Mark Brett

Western News Staff

CHIEF ENGINEER Gordon Lacy stands beside the damaged radio telescope reflected at the Dominion Radio Astrophysical

Observatory at White Lake Thursday.

“Aerodynamic properties are very difficult to simulate and calculate but now we’ll know what we have to do,” he said. “We budget for, back-tothe-drawing-board and (in) tm four months we’ll be back here. “This scenario was one of those freak chances.” technology Although it will take

Mark Brett/Western News

only about four months to construct another reflector, Hovey is concerned about the delay. “We are in a bit of a foot race with the other countries,” he said. “We were ahead but now we’re even or behind.” China and South Africa are working on similar prototypes.

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Someone else who was disappointed with the incident was DRAO director Sean Dougherty although he too was optimistic about the future of the project. “This morning didn’t work out ideally and it’s clearly a setback but we can repair the dish and put it on the pedestal,” said Dougherty.

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