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The Democratic Alliance hopes that the Minister of Science and Technology, Ms Naledi Pandor, will use her first visit to the Southern African Large Telescope (SALT) at Sutherland, today (Sunday) to announce a high-speed communications lifeline for the astronomical research being done there. No plans have yet been announced for a high-speed data link to be installed to communicate leading-edge deep-space research from Sutherland to Cape Town from where it will be sent to SALT's international research and investment partners abroad. Currently information gathered from other telescopes at Sutherland is stored on compact disks and taken by road to the South African Astronomical Observatory in Cape Town from where they are either posted overseas or couriered. The apparent lack of action in implementing a high-speed data link between Sutherland and Cape Town is causing concern in the space-research community because it may count against South Africa in its bid against Australia and New Zealand for the Square Kilometer Array (SKA) project. SKA will cost 1,5 billion Euro to build and about R1,5 million Euro annually to operate - most of which would be spent in the host country. The pressure is on the government to address this issue as a matter of urgency because the astronomical research using SALT is expected to start within months. Fine-tuning of its instruments is underway and the telescope is in its commissioning phase. Early in August the DA submitted questions to the minister, asking what progress was being made to establish a high-speed data link from Sutherland. We understand that a reply was drafted but as yet, there has been no official response. The questions we asked were: To secure South Africa's position as a significant stakeholder in the international astronomical research community what steps have been taken to:

Determine the amount of high-speed communications bandwidth needed by South African researchers and its offshore research partners to maximise the investment made in the Southern African Large Telescope (SALT) at Sutherland. If this has been done, what is this bandwidth required, who determined it, how will it be provided, what will it cost and when will infrastructure development on this communication link start.
If no bandwidth determination has been made, are there plans to do so? If so who will be involved in working out the needs to the research programmes, and what is the deadline by when they need to put their requirements on the table?
If the required communication infrastructure is not in place by year end when the telescope is expected to be operational, what impact will this have on the research programmes of South African astronomers and those of SALT's offshore investors?
Has the communication bandwidth requirement for MeerKAT and SKA been included in department's budget for infrastructure development? If so, what is this requirement in terms of technology and cost? When will tenders be called for?