2 minutes with... Prof. Richard Schilizzi In August, SKAO HQ welcomed former SKA Director Richard Schilizzi, Emeritus Professor of Astrophysics at The University of Manchester and the lead author of a forthcoming book on the history of the project. Welcome back to the HQ, Richard! Tell us about the meeting you’ve been holding. I’ve been here for a writers’ week for the SKA history book. This covers the period from 1993 when the International Union of Radio Science created a Large Telescope Working Group, to 2012 when the telescope site decision was made, just after my tenure as director ended. We’re working towards submitting the book later this year for publication next year by Springer Nature as part of their series of books on Historical and Cultural Astronomy.
Progress on show at rstSKAtelescopes status meetings BY SKAO TherstAnnualStatusUpdateMeetingsfortheSKA-Low and SKA-Mid telescopes were held in February and May 2022 respectively, providing an overview of progress for a broad target audience ranging from external stakeholders (such as the SKAO’s Science and Engineering Advisory committee) to the internal telescope teams. The meetings spanned two days each and were attended by up to 150 participants spread between the SKAO HQ Council Chamber and those connecting remotely via Zoom.
The meetings covered the period looking back to the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, and ahead to It’s a narrative of what happened and what went on behind the AA0the ( 5. rstdeploymentofMiddishesandLow scenestosetupdecisions,butalsoourreectionsonwhythings antennas planned to start in mid-2023) and beyond. happened. Many people know parts of the story, and those who Speakers were invited from across many of the key business have read draft chapters have said how much comes back to areas, in order to help to drive alignment among the them which they had forgotten. I often say human memory is a telescope teams and also contributing partners. Updates leaky storage device; it is amazing what people remember and and forecasts were provided by teams across the SKAO, don’t remember! including Science, the Telescope Delivery Teams, Operations, So it’s the first time all this history has been written down in the Product Delivery Teams, Software, assurance one place. procurement support and business enabling teams. What’s the scope of the book?
Yes, and it really makes you realise just how complex the project “We will be holding these meetings annually to give isbecauseitsglobal.Thereweremanynationsinvolved,dierent everyone a clear view of where things stand for both SKA fundingcycles,dierentworkingcultures,andmanynational telescopesasweprogressthroughconstruction,says activities feeding into the overall picture. That’s what we try to SKA-Mid Senior Project Manager Ben Lewis. “There’s real draw together in the 500 pages of the book. I’ve always thought value to getting everyone in one room – whether real or there should be a volume two for the pre-construction and virtual – to ask questions, hash out any issues, and also to constructionphase,exploringthedierentproblemsthat came understand the great progress that’s being made, which up and how they were tackled. That would be a good project for issometimeshardertoseeforindividualsorteams. [SKAODirector-General]PhilDiamondwhenheretires! The next editions of the telescope update meetings will likely What do you think when you see how far the project has take place in Q2 2023. come now? Itsafantasticachievement.Toseewhatstartedoallthose decades ago turn into the SKA Observatory, a treaty organisation BELOW: The SKA-Mid annual status meeting (pictured) in May followed like CERN, ESA and ESO, is just brilliant. And now of course the SKA-Low meeting in February. construction has started. The telescope design we foresaw a decade or more ago is pretty much what is being built. We know it’s going to do amazing things; we can see that already happeningintheprecursorsandpathnders,andtheSKAis bigger and will do even more transformational work. We also know from history that a large fraction of what the telescope becomes known for is not written down in the science case – that’s the discovery of the unknown. * “The Square Kilometre Array: a Science Mega-Project in the Making, 1993-2012” by Richard Schilizzi, Ron Ekers, Phil Crosby, and Peter Dewdney will be published in 2023.
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