Handover of the ngVLA prototype antenna

mtex antenna technology has officially handed over the prototype of the ngVLA antenna to the National Radio Astronomy Observatory. The new 18-meter antenna is located in the desert of New Mexico, USA – the first of approximately 260 to be deployed worldwide in the coming years.

Lutz Stenvers from mtex explained the technical innovations, such as the detection of new frequency ranges. Tony Beasley, Director of the National Radio Astronomy Observatory, outlined the scientific vision from the search for Earth-like planets to the exploration of supermassive black holes – the ngVLA will shape the radio astronomy of the next generation.

Each of the ngVLA’s antennas will collect huge amounts of data and send it simultaneously to a super-fast supercomputer, the Correlator. The antennas will collect data on more than 22,000 baseline combinations and send 6.4 terabytes of data per second back to this powerful central correlator for processing. Each download of ngVLA data is equivalent to streaming 7.68 million Netflix movies per hour. The ngVLA’s ability to process data quickly will shift the focus of astronomers’ research from the search for new celestial sources to the more detailed study of known objects.