On 26 December 2008, a foundation-laying ceremony was held on the construction site. Construction started in March 2011, and the last panel was installed on the morning of 3 July 2016.
Testing and commissioning began with first light on 25 September 2016. The first observations are being done without the active primary reflector, configuring it in a fixed shape and using the Earth's rotation to scan the sky. Subsequent early science took place mainly in lower frequencies while the active surface is brought to its design accuracy; longer wavelengths are less sensitive to errors in reflector shape. It took three years to calibrate the various instruments so it can become fully operational.
Local government efforts to develop a tourist industry around the telescope are causing some concern among astronomers worried about nearby mobile telephones acting as sources of RFI. A projected 10 million tourists in 2017 will force officials to decide on the scientific mission versus the economic benefits of tourism.[needs update]
On 14 June 2022, astronomers, working with China's FAST telescope, reported the possibility of having detected artificial (presumably alien) signals, but cautioned that further studies are required to determine if some kind of natural radio interference may be the source. More recently, on 18 June 2022, Dan Werthimer, chief scientist for several SETI-related projects, noted, "These signals are from radio interference; they are due to radio pollution from earthlings, not from E.T."
FAST has a reflecting surface 500 metres (1,600 ft) in diameter located in a natural sinkhole in the karst rock landscape, focusing radio waves on a receiving antenna in a "feed cabin" suspended 140 m (460 ft) above it. The reflector is made of perforated aluminium panels supported by a mesh of steel cables hanging from the rim.
FAST's surface is made of 4,450 triangular panels, 11 m (36 ft) on a side, in the form of a geodesic dome. There are 2,225 winches located underneath make it an active surface, pulling on joints between panels, deforming the flexible steel cable support into a parabolic antenna aligned with the desired sky direction.
Although the reflector diameter is 500 m (1,600 ft), held in the correct parabolic shape and "illuminated" by the receiver, only a circle of 300 m diameter is useful at any one time.: 13 The telescope can be pointed to different positions on the sky by illuminating a 300-meter section of the 500 meter aperture. (FAST has a smaller effective aperture than the Jicamarca Radio Observatory, which has a filled aperture of equivalent diameter of 338 m).
A five-kilometre zone near the telescope forbids tourists from using mobile phones and other radio-emitting devices.
An expansion has been planned to build additional 24 radio dishes with 40 meters diameter, and forming a radio-telescope array within the surrounding area of 10KM diameter. The project should expect a boost of telescope resolution by 30 times.
In February 2020, scientists announced the first SETI observations with the telescope.
First, Arecibo's dish was fixed in a spherical shape. Although it was also suspended from steel cables with supports underneath for fine-tuning the shape, they were manually operated and adjusted only during maintenance. It had a fixed spherical shape with two additional suspended reflectors in a Gregorian configuration to correct for spherical aberration.
Second, Arecibo's receiver platform was fixed in place. To support the greater weight of the additional reflectors, the primary support cables were static, with the only motorised portion being three hold-down winches which compensated for thermal expansion.: 3 The antennas could move along a rotating arm below the platform, to allow limited adjustment of azimuth,: 4 although Arecibo was not limited in azimuth, only in zenith angle: The smaller range of motion limited it to viewing objects within 19.7° of the zenith.
Third, Arecibo could receive higher frequencies. The finite size of the triangular panels making up FAST's primary reflector limits the accuracy with which it can approximate a parabola, and thus the shortest wavelength it can focus. Arecibo's more rigid design allowed it to maintain sharp focus down to 3 cm wavelength (10 GHz); FAST is limited to 10 cm (3 GHz). Improvements in position control of the secondary might be able to push that to 6 cm (5 GHz), but then the primary reflector becomes a hard limit.
Fourth, the FAST dish is significantly deeper, contributing to a wider field of view. Although 64% larger in diameter, FAST's radius of curvature is 300 m (980 ft),: 3 barely larger than Arecibo's 270 m (870 ft), so it forms a 113° arc: 4 (vs. 70° for Arecibo). Although Arecibo's full aperture of 305 m (1,000 ft) could be used when observing objects at the zenith, this was only possible with the line feed which had a very narrow frequency range and had been unavailable due to damage since 2017. Most Arecibo observations used the Gregorian feeds, where the effective aperture was approximately 221 m (725 ft) at zenith.: 4
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Williams, R.L. II (July 2015). Five-Hundred Meter Aperture Spherical Radio Telescope (FAST) Cable-Suspended Robot Model and Comparison with the Arecibo Observatory (PDF) (Report). Ohio University. Archived from the original (PDF) on 22 October 2016. Retrieved 6 July 2016. Although this source contains wealth of detail, its reliability is questionable. It describes in some detail (at the end of p. 4) the fact that FAST's dish is actually 519.6 m in diameter; papers published by the project scientists, who would presumably know, are explicit that the dish extends "up to a girder ring of exactly 500 m diameter". https://web.archive.org/web/20161022030530/http://www.ohio.edu/people/williar4/html/pdf/FAST.pdf
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Williams, R.L. II (July 2015). Five-Hundred Meter Aperture Spherical Radio Telescope (FAST) Cable-Suspended Robot Model and Comparison with the Arecibo Observatory (PDF) (Report). Ohio University. Archived from the original (PDF) on 22 October 2016. Retrieved 6 July 2016. Although this source contains wealth of detail, its reliability is questionable. It describes in some detail (at the end of p. 4) the fact that FAST's dish is actually 519.6 m in diameter; papers published by the project scientists, who would presumably know, are explicit that the dish extends "up to a girder ring of exactly 500 m diameter". https://web.archive.org/web/20161022030530/http://www.ohio.edu/people/williar4/html/pdf/FAST.pdf
Williams, R.L. II (July 2015). Five-Hundred Meter Aperture Spherical Radio Telescope (FAST) Cable-Suspended Robot Model and Comparison with the Arecibo Observatory (PDF) (Report). Ohio University. Archived from the original (PDF) on 22 October 2016. Retrieved 6 July 2016. Although this source contains wealth of detail, its reliability is questionable. It describes in some detail (at the end of p. 4) the fact that FAST's dish is actually 519.6 m in diameter; papers published by the project scientists, who would presumably know, are explicit that the dish extends "up to a girder ring of exactly 500 m diameter". https://web.archive.org/web/20161022030530/http://www.ohio.edu/people/williar4/html/pdf/FAST.pdf
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Rendong Nan; Di Li; Chengjin Jin; Qiming Wang; Lichun Zhu; Wenbai Zhu; Haiyan Zhang; Youling Yue; Lei Qian (20 May 2011). "The Five-Hundred-Meter Aperture Spherical Radio Telescope (FAST) Project". International Journal of Modern Physics D. 20 (6): 989–1024. arXiv:1105.3794. Bibcode:2011IJMPD..20..989N. doi:10.1142/S0218271811019335. S2CID 26433223. /wiki/ArXiv_(identifier)
"Arecibo: General statistical information on the antenna". National Astronomy and Ionosphere Center. 3 January 2005. Archived from the original on 18 August 2016. Retrieved 5 July 2016. https://www.naic.edu/~astro/general_info/basic.shtml
Rendong Nan; Di Li; Chengjin Jin; Qiming Wang; Lichun Zhu; Wenbai Zhu; Haiyan Zhang; Youling Yue; Lei Qian (20 May 2011). "The Five-Hundred-Meter Aperture Spherical Radio Telescope (FAST) Project". International Journal of Modern Physics D. 20 (6): 989–1024. arXiv:1105.3794. Bibcode:2011IJMPD..20..989N. doi:10.1142/S0218271811019335. S2CID 26433223. /wiki/ArXiv_(identifier)
"The Arecibo observatory and its telescope". Archived from the original on 10 September 2019. Retrieved 1 December 2020. https://www.naic.edu/~astro/guide/node2.html
"The Arecibo observatory and its telescope". Archived from the original on 10 September 2019. Retrieved 1 December 2020. https://www.naic.edu/~astro/guide/node2.html
Williams, R.L. II (July 2015). Five-Hundred Meter Aperture Spherical Radio Telescope (FAST) Cable-Suspended Robot Model and Comparison with the Arecibo Observatory (PDF) (Report). Ohio University. Archived from the original (PDF) on 22 October 2016. Retrieved 6 July 2016. Although this source contains wealth of detail, its reliability is questionable. It describes in some detail (at the end of p. 4) the fact that FAST's dish is actually 519.6 m in diameter; papers published by the project scientists, who would presumably know, are explicit that the dish extends "up to a girder ring of exactly 500 m diameter". https://web.archive.org/web/20161022030530/http://www.ohio.edu/people/williar4/html/pdf/FAST.pdf