Epilogue

On 1 October 2011, SRI International took over the management of the observatory and Robert Kerr became the Observatory Director again as well as the Director of NAIC. However, in mid-2015, SRI relieved Kerr of his position as director of NAIC resulting in his resignation as observatory director and departure from Puerto Rico. Francisco Cordova was appointed as the new observatory director. In early 2017, the NSF issued a solicitation for the management of the observatory. This resulted in the University of Central Florida (UCF) being selected to manage Arecibo as of 1 April 2018. In 2013, the 50th anniversary of the observatory’s inauguration on 1 November 1963, there was a celebration of its contributions to the fields of radio astronomy, planetary studies and ionospheric physics. Two natural events, an earthquake in 2014 and hurricane Maria in 2017 resulted in some damage to the telescope including the loss of the 430 MHz line feed. Despite a strong endorsement of the importance of Arecibo for radio astronomy and planetary studies by the 2012 NSF sponsored Portfolio Review, and NASA significantly increasing its support for the observatory’s planetary program, the NSF continued to reduce Arecibo’s budget, predicting that it would be only $2M per year at the end of UCF’s five year management term. On 1 December 2020 the suspended structure of the telescope collapsed after progressive failures of the cables from tower T4 to the suspended structure.