Milestone moment as SKA-Low completes first stage of delivery

BY SEBASTIAN NEUWEILER (SKAO)

Less than three years after construction of the SKA-Low telescope began on Wajarri Country in Western Australia, the first array is officially operational.

The four-station array, made up of the telescope’s first operating 1,024 antennas, completed a final phase of verification testing in July, demonstrating the necessary architecture and supply chain is in place and working.

SKA-Low Array, Verification and Integration Lead Engineer Lucio Tirone said the fundamentals of the telescope’s performance had been proven.

“We now have an operational interferometer array formed by four stations, a synchronisation and timing system, a correlator and beamformer, a science and non-science data network and a computing cluster at the Pawsey Supercomputing Research Centre – in other words, the entire system from A to Z is up and working,” he said.

The milestone follows SKA-Low’s first glimpse of the Universe in March, when commissioning scientists used data collected from the four-station array to produce an image of the sky, revealing 85 of the brightest known galaxies.

It also comes as the telescope reaches the construction milestone of 10,000 antennas assembled and installed.

SKA-Low Senior Project Manager Ivan Lloro said reaching the construction milestone was a testament to the international collaboration involved on the project.

“This is a stepping stone towards realising our shared dream of scientific discovery with the SKA Observatory,” he said.

“Thank you to all the people, institutions and companies involved for their continued efforts, which are bringing the Observatory closer to early science operations.”

There has been similarly exciting progress for SKA-Mid in South Africa’s Northern Cape.

In July, the first SKA-Mid dish measured its first astronomical signal using the South African-made Band 2 receiver that was installed earlier that month.

During a test observation, the dish picked up the neutral hydrogen signal coming from our galaxy, opening its eyes to the sky for the first time.