BRICS+ Proposal Targets Chilean Sites for Joint Observatory to Expand African Telescope Access
The BRICS-SO concept reframes Chilean observatory saturation as an investment opportunity for African partners. Evidence remains at the proposal stage with no funding commitments or technical specifications yet released. Success would redistribute optical observing time but depends on coordinated BRICS+ budgeting within the next two budget cycles.
Implementation hinges on whether BRICS+ finance ministers allocate capital before the 2028 ELT first-light window closes. A comparable precedent is the 2016 China-Chile agreement that delivered the 4.5 m C1 telescope in under five years; scaling that model to a multi-country instrument suite would require formal data-sharing protocols and training pipelines absent from the current preprint.
Hadjara et al.: At least one BRICS+ instrument proposal submitted to a Chilean host observatory by December 2028.
Sources (3)
- [1]Primary Source(https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.07041)
- [2]Supporting Source(https://www.eso.org/public/about-eso/engpubrel/)
- [3]Supporting Source(https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-07169-2)