Oral Presentation
Overview of CRAE and Potential Collaborations with the BURSTT
Presenter: Kobayashi Hideyuki & Punyawarin Songklod (National Astronomical Research Institute of Thailand)
National Astronomical Research Institute of Thailand (NARIT; Public Organization) initiated a national flagship project for development of radio astronomy and geodesy with human capacity building in Thailand, through establishing the Thai National Radio Astronomy Observatory (TNRO) in Chiang Mai, the northern part of Thailand in 2017. This observatory is constituted of the 40-m Thai National Radio Telescope (TNRT) with a frequency coverage of 0.3 - 115 GHz and a VGOS type 13-m radio telescope in Chiangmai. The 40-m TNRT was launched for scientific operations in Oct 2023 with Call for Proposals mainly in the L-band in collaboration with Max Planck Institute for Radioastronomy and IGN Yebes Observatory as the first phase, while the 13-m VGOS telescope has been under the commissioning in collaboration with Shanghai Astronomical Observatory. The TNRO has been expanded to be the Center for Radio Astronomy and Engineering (CRAE) with newly establishing an Advanced Radio Frequency Laboratory at NARIT headquarters in Chiang Mai since July 2024. The CRAE will operate another VGOS stations in Nakhon Si Thammarat and Songkhla provinces, both of which are sited in the southern part of Thailand in two years.
In this talk, we will overview of the CRAE ongoing developments both in sciences and engineerings, discuss potential collaboration along with the magnificent project BURSST in ASIAA, and show forthcoming future visions of us to establish a National VLBI Array in Thailand (TVA), which will be solid foundation for the next essential regional VLBI Network in Southeast Asia (SEAVN) in collaboration with Indonesia, Malaysia, and Vietnam.
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