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SETI is Back Online Thanks to Public Donations

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(Image by brewbooks via Flickr)

Back in April, the SETI project went offline because of government budget cuts. In June, SETI announced a program to raise $200,000 to go back online by soliciting donations directly from the public. The results have been successful. To date, the SETIStars program has raised over $207,000 with 3 days to spare in their program.

As a result, SETI has confirmed that the Allen Telescope Array will be going back online next month, as Alan Boyle reports.

[SETI Institute CEO Tom] Pierson said the institute's managers and scientists were drawing up a plan that would restart science operations in September.

"We think we're going to come out of hibernation and be solid for the next five months or so, and during those five months we're going to take care of calendar year 2013 and put that under our belt," he said.

Pierson acknowledged that the ATA's long-term success would "require a mix of funding," including continued contributions as well as renewed cash flow from other applications for the radio array. The institute is hoping that the U.S. Air Force will use the array to  track orbital objects that otherwise might pose a threat to the International Space Station and other satellites. During the daytime, the ATA could be used for the Air Force's "debris deconfliction," and during the night it could search for alien signals, Pierson said.

Mothballing a fantastic telescope array because they were missing funding was an awful thing. But it's exciting that there was enough public support to get them going (disclosure: I've donated). Hopefully they'll be able to get a steadier source of funding in the future.

h/t Bad Astronomy