Square Kilometre Array to begin construction in South Africa
The Square Kilometre Array Observatory (SKAO) officially marked the start of construction of its two powerful radio telescopes in South Africa and Australia on Monday, 5 December 2022.
The construction commencement ceremonies come 18 months after the SKAO’s council approved their building plans.
In South Africa, 133 parabolic dishes will be added to the existing 64 of the SKA-precursor telescope MeerKAT outside Carnarvon in the Karoo to form a mid-frequency instrument, shortened as “SKA-Mid”.
Once completed, it will consist of 197 fully-steerable dishes covering a collection area of 33,000m2.
Western Australia’s low-frequency telescope (SKA-Low) will consist of an array of 131,072 antennas, each two metres tall and shaped like Christmas trees.
“Together, the SKA telescopes will form the world’s largest and most capable radio astronomy instrument, managed from the SKAO’s global headquarters at Jodrell Bank near Manchester in the United Kingdom,” SKAO stated.
“Scientists will use the SKA telescopes over the course of their expected 50-year lifespans to answer crucial questions about the earliest decades of the universe, and unravel some of the most profound mysteries in astrophysics.”
Among these mysteries could be to test whether Albert Einstein’s theory of general relativity held in extreme environments, such as in the collision of supermassive black holes.
It could also help determine when and how the universe’s stars began to shine after the Big Bang and look for signs of extraterrestrial life.
MeerKAT installation in the Karoo, Northern Cape. Credit: Sarao
The first major construction milestone will be getting four SKA-Mid dishes and six SKA-Low antenna stations to work together as a basic telescope by 2024.
The entire construction project is expected to be finished by 2028 with a budget of roughly €2 billion (R36.37 billion)
“Thanks to the telescopes’ design as interferometers — where the signals of multiple telescopes are combined to act as one giant telescope — the first notable scientific results can be expected before the telescopes are completed at the end of the decade,” SKAO said.
Global construction activities on SKAO-related infrastructure started in July 2021, after the SKAO awarded more than 40 contracts worth approximately €150 million (R2.73 billion).
“Initial procurement concentrated on developing software, contracting professional services firms to help oversee construction, and bulk-buying components such as programmable circuit boards currently in short supply worldwide.”
The new contracts for construction and equipment provision are due to be announced during the ceremonies on Monday.
As part of this, SKAO council chair Dr Catherine Cesarsky travelled to the future site of the SKA-Mid telescope in South Africa.
SKAO director-general Prof. Phil Diamond also attended a similar ceremony for the SKA-Low telescope in Australia.
Both countries’ science ministers were invited to declare the telescope sites open for construction.
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