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Could robots help China save the world’s only giant radio telescope from collapse?
- Five intelligent robots have passed inspection for maintenance work at China’s Five-hundred-metre Aperture Spherical radio Telescope
- FAST, the world’s largest single-dish radio telescope, is also the world’s only such instrument after the 2020 collapse of Puerto Rico’s Arecibo
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Robots will soon be deployed to carry out maintenance work at China’s giant radio telescope, state media reported, holding out hope for eliminating the potential hazards posed by human repair workers.
Five intelligent robots, capable of automatically performing tasks without human instruction, have passed inspection for maintenance work at the Five-hundred-metre Aperture Spherical radio Telescope (FAST), Xinhua reported late last month.
Located in China’s southern Guizhou province, FAST is the world’s largest single-dish radio telescope. It is now also the world’s only giant radio telescope, after the collapse of Puerto Rico’s Arecibo Observatory telescope in 2020.
The Arecibo collapse shocked many worldwide, but for those in charge of maintaining the 305-metre-wide (1,000 feet) instrument, alarming signs including poor maintenance had been present for almost two decades.
Maintaining a giant telescope can be as challenging as building it, with the huge number of cables, reflective panels and other mechanical components needing to be regularly checked for wear or cracks.
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