With the vessel's basic form mostly locked away, the design team has been able to begin refining the design, based on feedback from previous passes.
As part of this, more detailed rough-in integration of major systems into the space frame is now also being addressed.
Primary among these, as perhaps one of the more potentially unwieldy systems, in the long-range navigational radio telescope.
Three concepts have been produced to illustrate how this system may be mounted on the vessel, each with their own advantages and disadvantages: a flank mounted array, a collapsible dual array, and a permanently mounted forward facing array.
Flank Permanent Array (a)
The flank array probably represents the most robust of the three options. However, in order to get sufficient depth to the telescope dish for more accurate imaging, it would require raising of the ship’s superstructure. Pros and Cons are as follows:
Pros:
Cons:
Deployable/folding Array (b)
The deployable array allows for the largest, and thus highest fidelity, receivers of the three options.
Pros:
Cons:
Forward Facing Permanent Array (c)
The forward facing permanent array represents the most easily operated location. However, it is also limited in size, limiting its fidelity, and requires the same raise superstructure as the flank array.
Pros:
Cons
It is the designer’s current feeling that the deployable array represents the best option among the three though, should it be adopted, operational procedure would need to be put in place to minimise the risk of damage to the system when deployed.
Does the array have to be circular to achieve it's purpose? Could it be elliptical or even more square to better fit with the vessel's design?
Also, it looks pretty huge comapred to the vessel (which is at least a few decks high, I imagine?)
My team has been doing work on improving the effectiveness of the dishes at ATCA, using field generators to manipulate incoming spectrum. This allows us to divert more of the desired spectrum towards the dish focal point than the physical size of the dish alone would otherwise allow. It also allows us to divert unwanted spectrum away from the dish (cleaning up incoming data).
In theory changing the shape of the field would allow you not only to extend the effectiveness of a smaller dish but also its shape? I'll have one of my team pass on our research to date (we don't have it in LIAIS yet).
I'll have to get one of the engineers to help you with that. The field generation equipment they've been adding to the dishes seems very low-profile, though.