Five-hundred-meter aperture spherical telescope project

A Five hundred meter Aperture Spherical Telescope (FAST) is proposed to be built in the unique karst area of southwest China, and will act, in a sense , as a prototype for the Square Kilometer Array (SKA). It will be over twic e as large as the Arecibo telescope coupled with much wider sky coverage. S ome results from site surveys for such a SKA concept are briefly reported. Technically, FAST is not simply a copy of the existing Arecibo telescope bu t has rather a number of innovations. Firstly, the proposed main spherical reflector, by conforming to a paraboloid of revolution in real time through actuated active control, enables the realization of both wide bandwidth an d full polarization capability while using standard feed design. Secondly, a feed support system which integrates optical, mechanical and electronic t echnologies will effectively reduce the tost of the support structure and c ontrol system. Pre-research on FAST has become a key project in the CAS.