Name of the Project
Square Kilometre Array (SKA) project.

Location
South Africa’s Karoo region and Western Australia’s Murchison Shire have been chosen as co-hosting locations.

South Africa’s Karoo will host the core of the high- and mid-frequency dishes, ultimately extending over the African continent. Australia’s Murchison Shire will host the low-frequency antennas.

Project Owner/s
SKA Observatory (SKAO), comprising Australia, China, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, South Africa and the UK, with others expected to join in due course.

Nine countries are currently observers in the SKAO Council, including those that took part in the design phase of the SKA telescopes (Canada, France, Germany, India, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland). Japan and South Korea have recently joined.

Project Description
The SKA will provide a collecting area of one-million square metres. This will make the SKA the biggest radio telescope array ever built.

The project will use three types of antennas (radio-wave receptors) – dishes, mid-frequency aperture arrays and low-frequency aperture arrays – to provide continuous frequency coverage from 70 MHz to 10 GHz. Combining the signals from the antennas will create a telescope with a collecting area equivalent to a dish with an area of about 1 km2.

The project will comprise two radio telescope arrays, currently designated SKA-Mid and SKA-Low.

The South African instrument, known as SKA–Mid, will comprise 197 dishes and operate in the 350 MHz to 14 GHz frequency range. The Australian instrument, known as SKA–Low, will comprise 131 072 dipole antennas and will operate in the 50 MHz to 350 MHz frequency range.

SKA–Mid will include the 64 dishes of the South African precursor to the SKA, the MeerKAT radio telescope array. Australia’s precursor, the Australian SKA Pathfinder (better known as Askap) will serve as surveying instrument for the SKA.

The central regions, in Australia and in South Africa, will contain cores, each 5 km in diameter – one for each antenna type. Fifty per cent of the collecting area will be within the central cores. The aperture array antennas will extend to about 200 km from the core regions. In Africa, the dishes will be positioned at distant stations that are 3 000 km from the core regions.

The construction of the SKA will be phased, which means that the SKA can start operating before construction is completed.

Potential Job Creation
Five-hundred engineers from 100 institutions across 20 countries are involved in the design of the SKA telescopes.

More than 1 000 scientists from 40 countries are involved in the development of the science case for the SKA telescopes.

Capital Expenditure
The overall design commitment for funding is €2-billion, under 2021 economic conditions. With every passing year, this number increases by the inflation rate.

Planned Start/End Date
The entire array is expected to start early operations by July 2028.

Latest Developments
Germany’s Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy (MPIfR) has announced that a prototype dish for the SKA-Mid radio telescope array has started initial astronomical observations, known as “first light observations”.

The dish is designated as the SKA-MPIfR telescope, acronymed to SKAMPI. It is a joint project, in implementation and funding, between the MPIfR and the South African Radio Astronomy Observatory (SARAO).

It was manufactured by CETC54, in China, and OHB Digital Connect, in Germany. SARAO has provided, including the development and integration of, several of the subsystems for SKAMPI. These included the single-pixel feed controller, the dish fibre network and the helium and vacuum services. SARAO also hosts SKAMPI.

The telescope is jointly operated by the MPIfR and SARAO. It will now conduct initial science programmes, but additional technical developments are also planned for implementation. These include the creation of a framework, allowing for the fully robotic operation of SKAMPI and the development of advanced calibration strategies.

Most observation time on SKAMPI will be reserved for MPIfR and SARAO programmes, but there will be opportunities for the German and South African science communities to request observations. There will also be an opportunity to create educational programmes for schools and universities. 

Key Contracts, Suppliers and Consultants
About 70 contracts will be placed by the SKAO within its member States, with competitive bidding taking place in the countries.

Contracts awarded to date: Astron – Netherlands Institute for Radio Astronomy, CGI Netherlands, TriOpSys, S[&]T – Science and Technology Corporation, Vivo Technical, Interaction Design Solutions, International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research, Guangzhou University, Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation, Fourier Space, Observatory Sciences, CGI IT UK, The Numerical Algorithms Group, Persistent Systems, Covnetics, The National Institute for Astrophysics, ALTAR Innovation, Faculdade de Ciências da Universidade do Porto, Critical Software (software development); Zutari (MID infra professional services); SARAO (professional services); AVNET Silica (SPS FPGAs); Sanitas EG (SPS iTPM & Subracks); EMSS Antennas  (receivers for SKA-Mid dishes); Power Adenco Joint Venture (construction of the major civil infrastructure for the SKA-Mid); South African Radio Astronomy Observatory (softwate); and EMCOM, VIVO and Zutari.

Contact Details for Project Information
SKA South Africa, email enquiries@ska.ac.za.