The US National Science Foundation (NSF) has prepared for the US Congress a status report on the collapsed Arecibo radio telescope in Puerto Rico. The report was compiled for Congress under the laws that govern the funding of research projects. A collapse has occurred and it is necessary to decide what to do with it next.

Due to the aging of the cables, the platform with the tools collapsed on the mirror of the antenna of the Arecibo radio telescope in Puerto Rico and pierced it

A preliminary estimate by NSF experts says that cleaning the observatory from debris and remnants of the radio telescope and related objects, as well as restoring the ecology of the environment, will require from $ 30 to $ 50 million. This is several times more than the annual budget of the observatory in Puerto Rico. And part of the observatory’s budget was covered by NASA, using the giant Arecibo radio telescope as a planetary radar to study planets and asteroids, including those threatening to fall to Earth. But neither NASA nor the NSE have the means to clean up the area from the debris of the radio telescope, not to mention the creation of a new object in place of the destroyed one.

The construction of a new radio telescope on the Arecibo site is estimated at over $ 450 million. One of the possible projects involves the creation of an array of antennas with a smaller diameter – from 9 to 15 meters instead of one large 300-meter one. But Congress did not even allocate money for the dismantling of the destroyed radio telescope, so there is no need to talk about building a new one yet.

A detailed report on the state of affairs on the site should be prepared by September of this year, when the next fiscal year in the United States closes, and the final version will be completed by the end of calendar 2021. But the money is needed now and to complete the treatment works will also be needed in 2022. During this time, a decision can probably be made to build a new facility. In the meantime, the Chinese are proposing to use their new FAST radio telescope as a planetary radar. Today it is one of the largest radio telescopes in the world with an antenna of 500 meters in diameter.