“With the SKA Observatory, you see how astronomy brings together the worlds of science and diplomacy. It shows that you can have inclusive scientific, cultural and societal development all together.”
Dr Marga Gual Soler
Science Diplomacy Expert and 2020 Young Global Leader of the World Economic Forum
The SKA telescopes will eventually comprise 197 dishes in South Africa, incorporating the existing MeerKAT radio telescope, and 131,072 antennas in Western Australia. This image blends real hardware already on the ground on both sites with artist’s impressions of the future SKA antennas. L-R: SKA dishes and the existing precursor MeerKAT dishes in South Africa, and the existing AAVS2.0 prototype station with SKA-Low stations in Western Australia.
Credit: SKAO
Next-generation radio astronomy
The SKA Observatory is an international endeavour whose mission is to build and operate cutting-edge radio telescopes to transform our understanding of the Universe, and benefit society through global collaboration and innovation.
The SKAO is an inter-governmental organisation that was established in early 2021. It brings together the resources, knowledge and experience of hundreds of specialists, creating a pool of expertise across science, technology, engineering, international governance, science policy, and more. With the ambition of soon becoming the leading research infrastructure for radio astronomy globally, the SKAO has made sustainability its foundation and guiding principle, underpinning its activities across all business areas.
The SKAO is currently building, in collaboration with partners from across five continents, two world-class complementary arrays of telescopes operating in the radio regime of the electromagnetic spectrum:
• One array of 197 15-m class dishes with a 150 km maximum separation between the most distant dishes, located in the Karoo region of South Africa.
• One array of 131,072 smaller antennas grouped in 512 stations, with up to 74 km maximum separation between the most distant stations, located on Wajarri Yamaji Country in Western Australia.
In June 2021, the newly formed SKAO Council approved the start of construction of the two SKA telescopes. This was followed by the allocation of contracts for, and the development of, telescope components and computing systems across SKAO countries.
Less than 18 months later, in December 2022, ceremonies to mark the start of on-site construction took place in Australia and South Africa, triggering years of infrastructure work at the telescope sites.
The SKAO Global Headquarters is home to about 180 experts in science, engineering, project management, policy, international law and many other specialisms. Located in the United Kingdom, the purposebuilt HQ is neighbour to Jodrell Bank Observatory, a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Credit: SKAO
The SKA project in numbers
€1.3 BILLION CONSTRUCTION COST (2021 ESTIMATE) 131,072 ANTENNAS IN WESTERN AUSTRALIA 710 PETABYTES OF SCIENCE DATA DELIVERED TO SCIENCE USERS PER YEAR
€0.7 BILLION FIRST 10 YEARS OF OPERATIONS
COST (2021 ESTIMATE)
197 DISHES IN SOUTH AFRICA (INCLUDING 64 MEERKAT DISHES)
1 GLOBAL NETWORK OF DATA CENTRES TO DELIVER SCIENCE-READY DATA PRODUCTS TO END-USERS
8 YEARS OF CONSTRUCTION ACTIVITIES
16 COUNTRIES
PARTICIPATING IN 2024 50+ YEARS OF TRANSFORMATIONAL SCIENCE
The two telescopes will operate separately but will, along with the data processing centres and the UK-based headquarters, form a single observatory. This brochure describes the initial phase of the SKA project deployment. The long-term ambition for the SKAO is to eventually expand on the first deployment by increasing the number of dishes and antennas. This prospect is viable due to the intrinsic scalable nature of the SKA telescope arrays, also known as interferometers.
The SKA telescopes are being constructed on existing radio observatory sites, which have been expanded and enhanced to accommodate the new infrastructure. The details of how the SKA telescopes are being deployed, and initial science exploitation enabled, are provided in two founding documents: The SKA Construction Proposal and the SKA Observatory Establishment and Delivery Plan, approved by the SKAO Council in June 2021.
The 10-year deployment strategy allows a degree of flexibility and has been optimised to ensure that the scientific return on investment begins as early as possible – the astronomical performance of the SKA telescopes will already surpass that of other state-ofthe-art facilities well before the end of construction. This flexible approach assists with the management of potential financial constraints in SKAO member states, the ongoing growth of the partnership, and unexpected changes in global circumstances, as the COVID-19 pandemic and geopolitical challenges have shown can happen.
Due to the sheer number of antennas, the SKA telescopes require significant data processing both on and off-site to manage the extremely large volume of information they will collect. This deluge of data will be distributed to the user community via a global network of data centres called SKA Regional Centres (SRCs) located in member states. The SRCs will act as windows to the Observatory for the scientists to collect and analyse their data, enabling the world-leading science it promises.
The SKAO’s low-frequency antennas in Australia (above) and mid-frequency dishes in South Africa (top) will enable astronomers to see further and in more detail than ever before. Credit: SKAO
21st century astronomy
As the world’s largest interferometers at their frequency, the SKA telescopes will establish themselves as the radio astronomy component of a suite of major facilities spanning the electromagnetic spectrum, on the ground and in space.
MICROWAVE INFRARED ULTRAVIOLET X-RAY
PRECURSORS & PATHFINDERS
VISIBLE
GRAVITATIONAL WAVES DETECTORS
ASTROSAT-1 & -2
ATHENA
ROMAN RUBIN SKA Low & Mid ALMA RADIO
GAMMA RAY
LISA
VIRGO LIGO KAGRA EUCLID ngVLA
The SKAO works in close partnership with CSIRO – Australia’s national science agency – and the South African Radio Astronomy Observatory (SARAO) to build and operate its telescopes and associated facilities in the telescope host countries. CSIRO already operates their ASKAP telescope at Inyarrimanha Ilgari Bundara, the CSIRO Murchison Radio-astronomy Observatory in Western Australia, the site where the SKA-Low telescope is being built. SARAO operates the MeerKAT telescope in the Karoo in South Africa. CSIRO and SARAO employ many of the staff in Australia and South Africa who are building and will operate the SKA telescopes under Agreements for Bilateral Collaboration with the SKAO.
The SKA project is a dream that is becoming true. By building it, we are really contributing to the history of astronomy and technology.
The two sites have been chosen due to their radio quietness. These sites enjoy the national regulatory status of radio quiet zones that protect them from ground-based interference, making them ideal for radio astronomy observations, as the SKA precursor telescopes located at the two sites, have already demonstrated.
To ensure maximum benefit from the natural environment, stringent requirements have been applied to the design of both SKA telescopes to ensure that very little radio frequency interference (RFI) is self-generated and that it is controlled by the infrastructure as much as possible.
This has been taken into account within the overall architecture of the telescopes as well as in the detailed designs.
The recent boom in satellite megaconstellations involving very large numbers of satellites is posing additional challenges for professional astronomy because of their impact on observations. In the case of the SKA telescopes, the RFI emitted by these constellations risks the loss of some observations, in particular for the SKA-Mid telescope.
Mitigations are possible and thanks to constructive engagement with satellite operators so far, the SKAO has identified a path that limits the impact on its telescopes while imposing limited constraints on satellite operators. Strong commitments from industry and member state governments will be needed in the months and years to come to take these proposals forward and ensure the investments in ground-based astronomy are safeguarded.
As part of its leadership on this issue, the SKAO has, since 2022, co-hosted the International Astronomical Union Centre for the Protection of the Dark and Quiet Sky from Satellite Constellation Interference (IAU CPS), alongside the US National Science Foundation NOIRLab.
The SKAO is also a permanent observer on the United Nations Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (COPUOS), where the issue of satellite constellations and their impact is now firmly on the agenda thanks to the sustained efforts of the SKAO and its international partners, supported by a large number of countries.
Significant return on investment for members
Membership of the SKAO and participation in SKA construction and operations offers a range of high-level benefits:
Access to world-leading science, with access to the facility broadly assigned in proportion to a member’s investment.
Opportunity to be involved in a global scale research infrastructure providing a framework for government-to-government interaction, using the SKAO as the focal point and basis for international relations and dialogue in many other areas, outside astronomy or science.
Access to innovation stemming from research and development for the SKAO, with likely applications in other areas.
Guaranteed minimum contractual return on investment for members for the current phase of deployment of the SKA telescopes, as defined in SKAO policies on procurement.
Opportunities for return on investment throughout the lifetime of the SKAO during operations and through further developments. Broader benefits through skills, outreach and education opportunities.
Dr Maria Grazia Labate SKA-Low Telescope Engineer, SKAO
A VIEW FROM TEAM SKA
I’m fascinated by the power of radio astronomy and how it can blend with cutting-edge technologies to solve cool mysteries like the possibility of extra-terrestrial life, and fundamental unanswered questions of our Universe.
Snehal Valame Software Engineer, SKAO associate
A major IT endeavour in science, technology and engineering
Partnerships between institutes, universities and industry have already formed to build and plan the scientific exploitation of the telescopes, their systems and instruments. Some technologies and innovations being developed for the SKA project have already found, and will continue to find, wider applications within industry and broader society. In addition to the breakthrough science the SKA telescopes will deliver, the scale and technological challenge of the project ensures it will have a significant economic, cultural and societal impact. The development of the SKA project is already generating knowledge, jobs, providing inspiration, increasing the skills base and developing industrial capacity in participating countries.
One of the key areas where the SKA project will have a significant impact is in the field of big data. The Observatory will soon transport, process, store and distribute to the global community of astronomers a deluge of data, giving the SKA project the reputation of being one of the leading big data challenges and a research infrastructure that exemplifies the new challenges of data science.
The unprecedented technical challenges the SKA project must overcome in the fields of networking, big data and high-performance computing and the subsequent development of new technologies, cloud processing, data analysis and visualisation tools are likely to yield substantial benefits in other areas of everyday life.
As the world’s largest facility of its kind, the SKAO will establish itself as the radio astronomy component of a suite of major observatories spanning the electromagnetic spectrum, on the ground and in space, addressing the highest priority science challenges. In an era when multi-messenger, multi-wavelength astronomy will be accelerated by access to a new generation of highly capable facilities, the SKAO will be in the prime position to deliver surveys of the sky, find new types of objects and provide targets of opportunity for follow up with optical extremely large telescopes and many other facilities, taking full advantage of the discoveries made at other frequencies.
SKA-Low Infra
Project Manager
Kaushik Bose with the drums of fibre optic cable that will transmit the huge amounts of data acquired by the SKALow telescope.
Credit: SKAO
A VIEW FROM TEAM SKA
French President Emmanuel Macron and South African President Cyril Ramaphosa during President Macron’s state visit to South Africa on 28 May 2021, where he announced that France would join the SKAO.
Credit: SARAO
A new frontier in science diplomacy
Global collaboration is at the heart of the SKA Observatory. It is unique among major research infrastructures in the scale of its international collaboration, involving countries on five continents and bridging the traditional northsouth and east-west divides. The SKAO welcomes new national communities to the field, and breaks down the traditional divide between developed and developing countries.
Encouraging government-level interaction and fostering international connections, the SKAO acts as a vehicle for collaboration, as exemplified in similar global research infrastructures such as CERN.
Then-EU Commissioner for Research, Innovation and Science, Carlos Moedas (right), and thenAmbassador of South Africa to Belgium, Luxembourg and the EU, Baso Sangqu (left), at the European Commission Headquarters in April 2018, where the SKAO’s indigenous astronomy art exhibition Shared Sky was on display.
The scientific and engineering collaborations required by world-leading international research infrastructures have their own inherent value, for example in developing human capital, encouraging innovation and the transfer of that innovation internationally for the good of humanity.
Built on the shoulders of giants
In the lead up to the SKA project, many new groundbreaking radio astronomy facilities have sprung up around the world in the past 15 years. These facilities, known as SKA pathfinder and precursor telescopes, are part of a global effort to design and build ever-more sensitive instruments to provide further insights into the radio sky and grow new scientific and technical communities.
These telescopes are allowing astronomers to develop improved techniques and explore new phenomena, as exemplified in recent years by exciting discoveries they’ve enabled. The ground-breaking science undertaken by such facilities includes:
• The sharp rise in the detection – and, in some cases, localisation – of fast radio bursts using telescopes such as ASKAP, CHIME, FAST, e-MERLIN and other pathfinders
• The solving of the mystery around X-shaped galaxies by MeetKAT
• The Rapid ASKAP Continuum Surveys are mapping the sky at higher resolution and greater sensitivity than previous surveys
Anti-clockwise from top left, the SKA precursor facilities: MWA and ASKAP in Australia; MeerKAT and HERA in South Africa. Credits: MWA – Pete Wheeler (ICRAR); ASKAP –CSIRO/Alex Cherney; MeerKAT and HERA – SARAO
• The detection of the biggest explosion since the Big Bang using MWA
• A new way to study exoplanet environments thanks to LOFAR
• The detection of atomic hydrogen content of galaxies seen as they were eight billion years ago (the earliest epoch in the Universe for which there is such a measurement) using the upgraded GMRT
At the same time, these telescopes allow engineers to develop new technical and innovative solutions.
These facilities are also playing a key role in training a new and more diverse generation of astronomers, engineers and technicians who will be ideally placed to make use of the SKA telescopes but also contribute to building a knowledge society.
The knowledge and experience gained by the precursor and pathfinder telescopes will guide the SKAO through construction and operation, and will be at the heart of a productive and groundbreaking use of the SKA telescopes in the years to come.
1 SKAO – the SKA Observatory
The SKAO is one global observatory, operating two telescopes, across three sites on behalf of the international scientific community.
A truly global enterprise
The SKAO is possible through the committed collaboration of its participating member states and institutions. Only through this combined capacity in resources, knowledge, and experience (industrial, technical, scientific and at policy level) will the SKA project be realised.
The SKAO was established as an intergovernmental organisation in early 2021. It is undertaking the construction and eventual operation and maintenance of the SKA telescopes. The Observatory has a global footprint and consists of the SKAO Global Headquarters in the UK, the two SKA telescopes at radio-quiet sites in South Africa and Australia, and the associated data processing facilities.
Institutions on five continents and in both hemispheres are involved in the SKAO in a unique partnership of nations.
SKAO Global HQ, Jodrell Bank, UK
SKAO Partnership - includes SKAO Member States* and SKAO Observers (as of June 2024)
SKA-Mid Site, Karoo, South Africa
SKA-Low Site, Murchison, Western Australia
African Partner Countries
SKAO Global HQ, Jodrell Bank, UK
SKAO Partnership - includes SKAO Member States* and SKAO Observers (as of June 2024)
SKA-Mid Site, Karoo, South Africa
SKA-Low Site, Murchison, Western Australia African Partner Countries
SKAO Global HQ, Jodrell Bank, UK
SKAO Partnership - includes SKAO Member States* and SKAO Observers (as of June 2024)
SKA-Mid Site, Karoo, South Africa
SKA-Low Site, Murchison, Western Australia
African Partner Countries
Location of SKAO facilities
SKAO’s facilities are distributed across three host countries.
The SKAO Global Headquarters, from which the development, construction and operations of the telescopes is being overseen, is a neighbour to the historic Jodrell Bank Observatory near Manchester in the United Kingdom, a UNESCO World Heritage site and home to the UK’s eMERLIN national radio observatory and the Lovell Telescope noted for its contribution to the development of human knowledge.
The array of SKA dishes SKA-Mid is centred in the Karoo Central Astronomy Advantage Area in the Northern Cape province of South Africa. It will be about 150 km in extent when complete.
The array of SKA log-periodic antennas
SKA-Low is being built on the traditional lands of the Wajarri Yamaji and will eventually be about 74 km in extent.
The site is located at Inyarrimanha Ilgari Bundara, the CSIRO Murchison Radioastronomy Observatory in Western Australia.
Both telescope sites will have a large central processing facility, housing stateof-the-art technology necessary for the functioning of the telescopes.
Each host country is also hosting facilities external to the telescope sites, where critical scientific and technical support for SKAO operations will take place.
Telescope operators will sit in operations control centres for each telescope, at either the science or engineering operations centres in Perth and Cape Town. Data on the operations of both telescopes will be fed to a monitoring centre at SKAO Global Headquarters. A global network of SRCs in member states
SCIENCE OPERATIONS CENTRE
PERTH
AND CAPE TOWN
All telescope-specific science operations activities will be based here. This includes telescope control and observation execution by the telescope operators, carrying out quality assessment to ensure the data collected are of sufficient quality for delivery to the global network of SKA Regional Centres (SRCs). Software support and most administrative functions will also be based at the relevant Science Operations Centre.
SCIENCE PROCESSING CENTRE
PERTH AND CAPE TOWN
These high-performance computing centres will host the science data processors, two powerful supercomputers.
will provide portals to data products, platforms/forums for advanced scientific analysis, and user support and training for astronomers using data collected by the SKA telescopes. The SRCs will operate as a fully integrated network to ensure that all SKA users are able to access data products and the tools to analyse them.
ENGINEERING
OPERATIONS CENTRE
GERALDTON AND KLEREFONTEIN
These will function as the administrative bases for telescope site activities and will also host mechanical/electrical/instrument workshops and RFI measurement chambers.
INTEGRATION TEST FACILITY
GERALDTON AND CAPE TOWN
During construction, these facilities are being used to test as much of the telescope system as possible in a stable and controlled laboratory environment ahead of assembly on-site. They aim to reduce risks during site deployment, enable early feedback, and allow the interfaces between products to be tested with real hardware.
Teams at the Science Operations Centres in Cape Town (left) and Perth (right). Credit: SKAO
Two world-class telescopes SKA-Mid
SKA-Low
THE SKAO’S LOW-FREQUENCY TELESCOPE
THE SKAO’S MID-FREQUENCY TELESCOPE
LOCATION:
AUSTRALIA
FREQUENCY RANGE: 50 MHz–350 MHz
131,072
ANTENNAS
SPREAD ACROSS 512 STATIONS
LOCATION:
SOUTH AFRICA
FREQUENCY RANGE: 350 MHz–15.4 GHz WITH A GOAL OF 24 GHz
197 DISHES
(INCLUDING 64 MEERKAT DISHES)
MAXIMUM BASELINE: ~74 km
MAXIMUM BASELINE: 150 km
The
Credit: SARAO
2 Science
The SKA telescopes will be a transformational scientific facility. They will tackle some of the most fundamental scientific questions of our time, ranging from the birth of the Universe to the origins of life.
Their science goals are broad and ambitious, looking back into the history of the Universe as far as the Cosmic Dawn, when the very first stars and galaxies formed, in order to seek answers to some of the biggest remaining questions in astrophysics. The SKA telescopes themselves, building on and enhancing the great science highlights of the SKA precursor and pathfinder facilities, will deliver a profound impact. For some studies, they will also be working together with other world-leading astronomy facilities.
The SKAO will devote a substantial fraction of its telescopes’ time to key science projects – major surveys targeting ground-breaking transformational science
discoveries that require considerable amounts of observing time on the telescopes. The remainder will be allocated to smaller-scale studies led by individual astronomers and smaller teams. Access to the telescopes will be based primarily on scientific merit, prioritising science proposals from astronomers from the Observatory’s member states.
The history of astronomy is replete with unexpected discoveries. Astronomy is not conducted in laboratories; it is an observational science in which facilities with very broad capabilities have delivered enormous scientific impact in ways that could not be foreseen when they were designed and built.
Many of the most important discoveries in astronomy fall into this category of exploratory science. A guiding design principle of the SKA telescopes has been to enable the broadest possible range of science, including even currently unanticipated observations.
Measure of SKAO scientific success
1 Over-subscription of observing time on the telescopes
2 Number of publications featuring SKAO observations and results or enabled by SKAO resources
3 Number of citations to qualified SKAO publications
4 Number of publications or citations per facility cost
5 Usage and reproducibility of SKAO science data products
This list is not exhaustive and is expected to evolve over time.
galactic centre as seen by South Africa’s MeerKAT radio telescope, an SKA precursor which will be integrated into the SKAO’s mid-frequency array.
Science drivers
Cosmic Dawn and the epoch of reionisation
WHERE DID IT ALL BEGIN?
HOW AND WHEN DID THE FIRST STARS, GALAXIES AND BLACK HOLES FORM?
The SKA telescopes will uniquely enable the measurement of a complete time sequence of images from the onset of Cosmic Dawn to the end of reionisation, using the faint radio light coming directly from the hydrogen itself.
The resulting movie of the Universe’s first 700 million years will answer a multitude of questions about this vital chapter in the history of the Universe.
Cosmology and dark energy
CAN WE UNCOVER THE MYSTERIOUS NATURE OF DARK ENERGY?
HOW AND WHY HAS IT BECOME THE MAJOR PLAYER IN OUR UNIVERSE?
The SKA telescopes will fundamentally advance our understanding of the mysterious dark components by measuring the equation of state of dark energy with percent-level precision; constraining possible deviations from general relativity on cosmological scales; and mapping the structure of the Universe on the largest accessible scales, thus constraining fundamental properties such as isotropy and homogeneity.
Forming stars through cosmic time
HOW AND WHEN WERE THE FIRST STARS BORN?
HOW HAS THE RATE OF STAR FORMATION CHANGED OVER TIME, AND WHY?
There is evidence that star formation was fundamentally different in the early Universe, often occurring within intense concentrations of super star clusters that have few, if any, counterparts today.
The SKA telescopes will play a key role in learning more about this mode of star formation.
Galaxy evolution
WHAT IS THE LIFE-CYCLE OF A GALAXY?
WHERE DO THEY COME FROM, WHERE DO THEY GO?
WHAT ARE THE PROPERTIES OF THE MYSTERIOUS DARK ENERGY?
The SKA telescopes will, for the first time, allow galaxy evolution, as traced by the accumulation and utilisation of atomic hydrogen, to be observed throughout cosmic time.
They will have the raw sensitivity to study the hydrogen concentrations that are associated with galaxies even in the distant, early Universe.
Cosmic magnetism
The bursting sky
The cradle of life
HOW DID THE UNIVERSE BECOME MAGNETIC?
WHERE AND WHEN DID MAGNETISM ORIGINATE?
HOW HAS IT EVOLVED?
The SKA telescopes will enable the creation of the first three-dimensional magnetic map of the Universe.
This will be done by measuring the individual magnetic components along the sightline toward extremely large samples of sources distributed in all directions on the sky and extending these measurements to sources at varying distances.
WHAT ARE THE COUNTERPARTS OF THE FAST AND FURIOUS BURSTS OF RADIO WAVES?
WHAT CAN THEY TELL US ABOUT THE CONSTITUENTS OF THE UNIVERSE?
The SKA telescopes will enable us to associate thousands of individual fast radio bursts with the objects that host them, allowing us to map out the plasma content of the Universe.
This will allow us to study the so-called “missing baryons”, determine the ionisation history of the Universe, and give us new and independent measures of the main drivers of cosmic expansion – the mass of the Universe and dark energy.
HOW DO YOU MAKE A PLANET FROM SPACE PEBBLES?
ARE WE ALONE IN THE UNIVERSE?
The SKA telescopes will have sufficient resolution to watch the assembly of planets in Earth-like orbits about their parent stars.
The telescopes will also make it possible, for the first time, to detect emissions from planets associated with nearby stars that are comparable to those generated by human activity on Earth, opening the possibility of detecting technologically active civilisations elsewhere in our galaxy.
Challenging Einstein: gravitational waves
WAS EINSTEIN RIGHT ABOUT GRAVITY?
CAN WE FIND AND UNDERSTAND WHERE GRAVITATIONAL WAVES COME FROM?
The SKA telescopes will use our entire galaxy to detect and measure gravitational waves from the merger of supermassive black holes at the centres of galaxies that are impossible to detect with Earth-based detectors.
The detection method involves using very rapidly spinning neutron stars with radio beams emanating from their poles, known as millisecond pulsars, as a system of high precision clocks located throughout our galaxy.
SKA-Low
3 Big data
Due to the sheer volume of data it will have to transport, process, store and distribute to its end users around the globe, the SKA project is considered by many the ultimate big data challenge.
An average of 8 terabits per second of data will be transferred from the SKA telescopes in both countries to central signal processors. This is approximately 1,000 times the equivalent data rate generated by the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), a joint European/USA/ East Asia facility in the Chilean Andes, and 65,000 times faster than the global average home broadband speed for 2023 (Source: CISCO). The data will travel along hundreds of kilometres of fibre-optic cables to highperformance supercomputers called science data processors, to be located in Perth and Cape Town.
To process this enormous volume of data, the two supercomputers will each have a processing speed of ~135 PFlops, which would place them in the top 10 of the fastest supercomputers on Earth at the present time (Source: Top500; June 2024). In total, the SKAO will archive over 700 petabytes of data per year. This would fill the data storage capacity of about 1.5 million typical laptops every year by today’s standard.
Data transfer rates between the SKA telescopes, processing facilities and regional centres.
From these supercomputers, data will be distributed via intercontinental telecommunications networks to SKA Regional Centres in the SKAO member states where science products will be stored for access by the end users, the astronomers.
In order to help member states to prepare their infrastructures in terms of data transfer, processing and storage, and also to ensure the community of users are prepared for how to handle and maximise the potential of SKA data, the Observatory has developed SKA data challenges. These challenges are aimed not only at radio astronomers, but the broader astronomy, physics and computing spheres. The challenges aim to develop the techniques
The SKA project requires continuous contributions from the community. Knowledge propagation and education of young scientists is a vital part of that.
and skills required of both the users and the facilities for when data from the SKA telescopes begin to flow, and to encourage knowledge sharing among the community.
Overall, the boom in big data and highperformance computing for big science projects like the SKA is driving a revolution, fostering links with industry, creating jobs and generating growth globally. Unprecedented technical challenges must be overcome, particularly in the fields of networking, big data and high-performance computing, and the development of new technologies, cloud processing, data analysis and visualisation tools is likely to have major applications in everyday life.
The Spanish SKA Regional Centre prototype, hosted by IAA-CSIC in Granada, is being used to explore open science and green computing for the SRCNet. Credit: IAA-CSIC/espSRC
Dr Tao An Astronomer, Shanghai Astronomical Observatory
A VIEW FROM TEAM SKA
Science Data Challenge 3
UKSRC, IRIS-CAM Cambridge, UK
UKSRC (JBO / Manchester, IRIS-STFC) Manchester, UK
Galicia Supercomputing Center / CESGA Santiago de Compostela, Spain
THE CHALLENGE IN NUMBERS
SPSRC / IAA-CSIC Granada, Spain
Swiss National Supercomputing Center / CSCS Lugano, Switzerland
- TriesteCatania,
7.5 TB
60 GB of image cubes representing different radio frequencies
Teams analysing of simulated telescope 234 16 registered participants in countries 12 supercomputing centres providing resources globally
Teams are analysing data which simulates observations of the Epoch of Reionisation signal (left; bright areas are neutral hydrogen, and dark patches are ionised gas). It is obscured by foreground emission (right; orange dots are galaxies, and the ribbon-like shape is diffuse gas in our galaxy). While the features of each image appear equally bright here, in the data cube the background is millions of times fainter than the foreground.
China SRC Shanghai, China
Tackling the data deluge
In parallel with work to develop the SRCNet, the SKAO has been working, with the support of international supercomputing partners, with the astronomy community on the tools, algorithms, and data pipelines that will be an essential component of the network, ensuring the Observatory is ready to deliver data from day one, and enabling astronomers to maximise the science impacts of the data.
The SKAO Science Data Challenges, launched in 2018, are part of this work. They are helping to prepare future users for the huge and complex data sets the SKA telescopes will create, as well as the different ways of working they will bring about, where astronomers interact with the data via SRCs rather than downloading their observations directly.
Run with the assistance of supercomputing facilities worldwide, including SRC prototype centres, the challenges provide realistic, simulated SKA data for teams to analyse using a mix of custom and established techniques.
Each challenge is shaped around a different SKAO science goal, and they have become increasingly complex over time, meaning tools and processes can be refined on different data sets. They have already resulted in novel solutions and, thanks to a strong focus on reproducibility (see page 23), have enabled participants to learn from others’ approaches.
Hundreds of people worldwide have taken part in the three data challenges to date, with the most recent attracting teams spread across 16 countries. Feedback from participants is also being fed back into the process of developing the SRCNet to ensure it matches users’ requirements.
Just as member countries’ investments in SRCNet facilities are benefitting the science ecosystem more widely by supporting other big data projects, the skills and tools developed in the Science Data Challenges can find applications in other fields where huge data sets are increasingly the norm.
The Science Data Challenges are preparing the community for the huge and complex data sets the SKA telescopes will provide. They’re a real test-bed for driving forward new technologies like machine learning.
Dr Philippa Hartley SKAO Scientist
Establishment and delivery of the Observatory
The SKA Observatory is undertaking the construction, operation and maintenance of the SKA telescopes.
The Observatory is operated as a single organisation, with corporate and crossobservatory functions primarily located at the headquarters, and staff responsible for the operations and administration of the two SKA telescopes located in Australia and South Africa.
In order to deliver on its ambitious goals, the SKAO draws on the global expertise present across the member states and the scientific and engineering institutes and industry within the member states.
This multi-cultural, multi-national collaboration is by nature diverse, and its diversity is a source of strength for the Observatory. Equality and diversity are enshrined in the SKAO Convention,
committing the organisation to adhere to values of equality, diversity and inclusion in its leadership and at all levels through the Observatory, encompassing gender balance, nationality and representation of traditionally underrepresented groups.
The staff who are managing the construction of the telescopes, and who will operate and oversee the Observatory for the next 50 years or more, are employees of one of three organisations: the SKAO itself, CSIRO in Australia, or SARAO in South Africa. CSIRO and SARAO also have responsibilities conveyed on them by the governments of Australia and South Africa connected to the provision of the sites in Western Australia and in the Karoo on which the SKA telescope antennas and associated instruments are located.
The design of the SKA telescopes, the plans for their operation, and the observing programmes that will be conducted once they are operational, are all fundamentally driven by the scientific priorities of the global community of professional research astronomers. The design, operations plan and resourcing for the Observatory have all been developed with substantial input from experts from across the relevant communities and subjected to extensive independent reviews. To ensure the SKAO continues at the forefront of science over the decades to come, a forward-looking programme – the SKAO development programme – focused on future capabilities will be implemented. It will seed technology and capability studies by institutes in member states, and ultimately fund the implementation of new capabilities for the telescopes, data
systems and software to ensure that it can continue to facilitate the most challenging science over its lifetime. This development programme will involve both a technology roadmap and a science roadmap which will feed into an integrated development plan.
The SKAO is ramping up recruitment, in particular in the telescope host countries. With around 170 staff at SKAO Global Headquarters in the UK, 75 in Australia and 55 in South Africa as of June 2024, the teams will continue to grow in the coming years to meet the demands of construction and early operations.
Renowned astrophysicist Prof. Dame Jocelyn Bell Burnell delivers a speech in the Council Chamber at SKAO Global Headquarters to mark the inauguration of the building in July 2019. Credit: SKAO
SKAO high-level principles
SKA OBSERVATORY OPERATIONS
The SKAO’s motto is: “One global observatory, two telescopes, three sites”. This embodies the global and distributed nature of the SKAO, with its headquarters at the Jodrell Bank site near Manchester in the UK and its other facilities in each of the two telescope host countries.
OPERATION OF SKAO IN THE HOST COUNTRIES
Operations of the SKAO in the host countries are performed cooperatively between the SKAO and operating partner organisations in those countries: CSIRO in Australia and SARAO in South Africa.
SKA REGIONAL CENTRES
It is expected that the SKAO member and associate member states will either individually, or working together, establish a network of data centres - the SKA Regional Centres (SRCNet) - to support the user community in their country, region or scientific field.
OPEN TIME AND ACCESS FOR NON-MEMBERS
Telescope time will primarily be available to the SKAO member states, but provision will be made for open time available to astronomers from anywhere in the world, at a level to be determined by the SKAO Council.
SKAO SCIENCE PROGRAMMES
Time allocation will be based on scientific merit and technical feasibility, evaluated via a common time allocation process.
The director-general is responsible for time allocation, advised by a time allocation committee.
Time will be made available for key science projects, principal investigatorled projects and directorgeneral’s discretionary time.
The SKAO will operate on the principle that access is proportional to member states’ share in the project.
Observatory data products are to be made openly available to the global community after a suitable proprietary period to be determined by the SKAO Council.
The SKAO member states are inherently diverse, and as a result, the SKAO could be a model for how world observatories tackle issues related to equity, diversity and inclusion. That stems not only from engaging with Indigenous and local populations where the SKA will be built, but also from using the SKA as a vehicle for addressing systemic inequalities in all of the member states.
Kristine Spekkens
An inter-governmental organisation for radio astronomy
The SKAO was established as an inter-governmental organisation in early 2021. The Observatory is the legal entity responsible for constructing, operating and maintaining the SKA telescopes in Australia and South Africa. The SKA Observatory Convention, establishing the Observatory, was signed in March 2019 by representatives of Australia, China, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, South Africa, and the United Kingdom. The SKAO is only the second such organisation in astronomy, the other being ESO, the European Southern Observatory. Since then, Switzerland, Spain and Canada have joined the SKAO as members, with more expected to join in the next few months and years, in line with the Observatory‘s intent to continue to expand its footprint.
COUNCIL
The governing body of the Observatory –the SKAO Council – comprises representatives from each member state. The council is responsible for the overall strategic and scientific direction of the SKAO, good governance and attainment of purpose.
DIRECTOR-GENERAL
The Council appoints a director-general who leads the construction and operation of the Observatory, working with a leadership team spanning the UK, Australia and South Africa. The current director-general is Prof. Philip Diamond.
Prof.
Radio astronomer, Royal Military College of Canada and Queen’s University
A VIEW FROM TEAM SKA
5 The telescopes
Construction
Construction of the SKA telescopes is well underway, with manufacturing and software development taking place globally across all the SKAO’s member states, the first antennas being assembled on site for both telescopes in 2024, and infrastructure works ongoing in readiness for further deployments. As of June 2024, the project as a whole - taking into account design, infrastructure, software development, hardware manufacturing and antenna construction - is almost a third of the way towards completion. A total of 89 construction contracts been let to suppliers in every SKAO member country, with a total value of over €760m.
The plan to deliver the SKA telescopes has been backed by several successful independent reviews by international experts, with deep knowledge of the science, engineering, programme management, and the delivery of large-scale research infrastructures. The timing of delivery will ensure that the SKAO assumes a worldleading position among the most capable astronomical facilities, with scientists able to exploit synergies between them.
Construction activities ramped up in 2024 with the assembly of the first dish for the SKA-Mid telescope (top) and SKA-Low telescope (bottom). Credit: SKAO
Telescope design
The two SKA telescopes differ in design and are complementary by their very nature. Both are interferometers: arrays of antennas which when linked together act as one enormous telescope, bigger than would ever be possible in a traditional single-antenna design.
SKA DISHES IN SOUTH AFRICA
The design baseline for the South Africanbased SKA telescope (also known as SKA-Mid) comprises initially 197 dishes. Of these, 64 are already in place and form SARAO’s MeerKAT precursor telescope, itself a world-class facility, which will eventually be integrated into the SKA telescope after having conducted science for several years. The SKA-Mid dishes have a main reflector measuring 15 m in diameter, with offset Gregorian optics where the feed is on the low side of the reflector. The telescope will initially cover the frequency range from 350 MHz to 15.4 GHz.
SKA LOG-PERIODIC ANTENNAS IN WESTERN AUSTRALIA
The design baseline for the Australianbased SKA telescope (also known as SKA-Low) comprises initially 131,072 low-frequency antennas with no moving parts, spread across 512 antenna stations and steered electronically. Each station will comprise 256 dual-polarised log-periodic antennas distributed in a 38-m-diameter circular area. At low frequencies, “wire antennas”, such as dipoles, are much more efficient than reflectors. The challenge to cover the frequency range from 50 to 350 MHz in one band constrained the choice to only a few designs. SKA-Low will be constructed using wire antennas of a so-called “log-periodic” design that couple many dipole antennas, each tuned to a specific frequency range, to a single transmission line.
Local and Indigenous communities were an important part of the SKAO’s Construction Commencement Ceremonies at the telescope sites in Australia and South Africa on 5 December 2022.
Top: In South Africa, a young dance troupe from Carnarvon performed the traditional riel dance around the first SKA-Mid telescope foundation at dusk on the eve of the ceremony. Credit: SARAO
Bottom: In Australia, at Inyarrimanha Ilgari Bundara, the CSIRO Murchison Radio-astronomy Observatory, a Wajarri cultural dance was performed as part of the celebrations following a “Welcome to Country” ceremony in which Traditional Owners welcomed attendees to their ancestral lands. Credit: SKAO
Design features
In order to reach the required sensitivity, the two telescopes use the interferometer concept in which multiple connected antennas work together as a single telescope. For both telescopes about half of the antennas are arranged in a relatively compact core with a diameter of ~1 km, and the rest are spread out in three spiral arms.
The maximum separation between antennas is 74 km and 150 km for SKA-Low and SKA-Mid, respectively. Notwithstanding the selection of radioquiet sites, the SKA telescopes will be equipped with additional design features to reduce the impact of radio frequency interference.
The SKA telescopes are designed to be as efficient and as flexible as possible, to maximise their scientific impact. Operating around-the-clock, the goal is for each telescope to be available for science observations for at least 80% of the time.
Moreover, by forming sub-arrays which can be configured and operated independently of each other, the SKA telescopes will be able to conduct simultaneous, unrelated observations at the same time.
The telescopes’ design is scalable and upgradable, allowing future improvements to maintain their world-leading capabilities, and also to align with available funding. This includes state-of-the art scientific and computing infrastructures, designed to progressively exploit the capabilities of the Observatory as computing technology continuously improves over coming decades. The SKA Observatory will require ~12MW of power; it is the goal of the SKAO to maximise the use of sustainable, renewable energy to deliver its power requirements.
Simulated image quality of SKA-Mid (left) versus the Jansky Very Large Array (JVLA) in the USA (right), which has the best combination of sensitivity and resolution of existing facilities. SKA-Mid’s resolution will be 4x better than JVLA’s.
Simulated image quality of SKA-Low (left) versus the best current facility operating in the same frequency range, the Low Frequency ARray (LOFAR) antennas in the Netherlands (right). SKA-Low‘s resolution will be similar to LOFAR’s.
Note that all images are simulated “dirty” snapshots of bright objects, that is without any deconvolution applied.
Comparative performance
The SKA telescopes’ sheer size and large number of antennas means they will, in comparison to existing state-of-the-art telescopes, provide a significant leap in sensitivity, resolution and survey speed, the three principal measures by which astronomers assess performance. While higher resolution makes images less blurry, akin to putting on reading glasses, the SKA telescopes’ exceptional sensitivity will allow them to see far deeper into the Universe than current telescopes, revealing far fainter details than ever observed before. They will also see more of the sky at once, providing vastly improved survey speeds.
The SKAO is going to lead the renaissance in radio astronomy in the next decades. This is going to unveil an invisible universe which we would never possibly have been able to see without it.
Dr Jessica Dempsey Director-General, Netherlands Institute for Radio Astronomy (ASTRON)
A VIEW FROM TEAM SKA
6 Staged delivery
Construction of the SKA telescopes will take eight years (including 18 months contingency), having begun in July 2021 following approval by the SKAO Council.
The construction plan involves a staged approach, progressing through the delivery of a series of array assemblies (AA), as shown in the table (right), each incrementally adding more antennas to SKA-Low and SKA-Mid array, and with a growing suite of technical and scientific capabilities.
This phased strategy means the SKAO can deliver the most effective instruments possible at each stage, maintain a continuously working and expanding facility, and manage the wide range of challenges encountered along the way.
The first array assembly (AA0.5), which at July 2024, is under construction, will develop the earliest possible working demonstration of the architecture and supply chain. By the completion of AA2, currently planned for the end of 2026/ early 2027, both telescopes will have achieved or surpassed the sensitivity of comparable existing facilities.
Staged delivery provides an opportunity to demonstrate the scalable nature of interferometers by choosing an optimum configuration for the arrays as they grow. This means we can maximise the telescopes’ science capabilities at the earliest possible stage.
Dr Robert Braun SKAO Director of Science
While the full commitment of funds necessary for the full design baseline of the SKA telescopes had not been wholly identified by the start of construction activities given the size of the project, the array-concept of the telescopes naturally leads to working systems at an early stage. The approach permits an effective mechanism to manage potential challenges as we progress the construction of the telescopes, including any potential funding challenges to provide a functioning and world-class observatory. As each of the two SKA telescopes is an interferometer and is therefore inherently
extensible, any reduced capability could be restored at a later stage to deliver the nominal performance that is the target of this ambitious project.
While the SKAO’s firm intention is to build the SKA design baseline of 197 SKA-Mid dishes and 512 SKA-Low stations (known as AA4), its initial focus is on delivering a preliminary array in line with the anticipated funding available. Known as AA*, it comprises a 144-dish array in South Africa (80 SKA-Mid dishes integrated with 64 MeerKAT dishes), and 307 SKA-Low stations in Australia.
Composite image of the three SKAO sites
(the HQ in the UK, SKA-Mid telescope in South Africa and SKA-Low telescope in Australia) combining real images with artist’s impressions. Credit: SKAO
The design of the telescopes was determined by the capabilities required to deliver on the highest priority science objectives identified by the global astronomy community, and reduction in the scope of the construction project will materially reduce the realisation of those science goals. The Observatory’s staged delivery plan is therefore focused on ensuring that each array assembly is configured in a way that optimises the science performance of the telescopes, and maximises science potential for the community.
For SKA-Mid, AA* fully populates the telescope’s spiral arms out to 40km, and establishes the telescope’s maximum baseline of 150 km. This configuration means most SKA-Mid science applications will not be affected, and image quality will still be exceptional. For SKA-Low, the AA* configuration calls for 307 stations - about half in a dense core, and half remote, again establishing the telescope’s maximum baseline of 74 km.
In both cases, AA* will already provide full bandwidth, and dishes and antenna stations can be added to fully populate the spiral arms in time, to realise the full design baseline.
Following the completion of the construction of the AA* systems, an operations readiness review will take place to demonstrate the ability of the Observatory to execute a set of key observing modes, illustrated by end-to-end tests of representative science verification projects from proposal preparation to (public) data delivery. This process confirms compliance to Level 0 requirements and the ability to execute high-priority science cases. If funding for the full design baseline has been confirmed as expected at this point, construction will continue in parallel with early science operations.
Handover of the commissioned and verified system for scheduled observing will be gradual. It is expected that specific modes will be released in sequence, starting with basic (and commonly used) modes, and allowing particularly difficult and more esoteric modes to be added over time.
Key project milestones (as of June 2024)
of global construction activities
Earliest start of major contracts
Array Assembly 0.5 finish (AA0.5)
SKA-Low = 4-station array
SKA-Mid = 4-dish array
Array Assembly 1 finish (AA1)
SKA-Low = 18-station array
SKA-Mid = 8-dish array
Array Assembly 2 finish (AA2)
SKA-Low = 64-station array
SKA-Mid = 64-dish array
SKA-Low = 307 station array
SKA-Mid = 144 dish array, including 64 MeerKAT dishes
Operations Readiness Review (ORR)
End of staged delivery programme
Array Assembly 4 finish (AA4)
SKA-Low = full array
SKA-Mid = full array
CSIRO’s hybrid solar-diesel power station at Inyarrimanha Ilgari Bundara in Australia. An array of 5,280 silicon solar panels, covering an area of 3ha, generates up to 1.6MW of renewable power. Credit: CSIRO.
SKAO will also require a standalone power station on site to power the antennas and associated systems of the SKA-Low telescope. Like CSIRO’s, this will be a hybrid system combining a solar photovoltaic array, battery storage, and diesel system, with a high fraction of renewable solar generation, to ultimately generate around 3MW.
We are keen that our approach be consistent with the United Nations’ definition of sustainability, which is to meet the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.
Dr Lewis Ball
SKAO Director of Operations and Chair of the Sustainability Steering Group
7 Sustainability
Sustainability is a foundational value at the SKAO, underpinning all other activities across the Observatory. The SKAO aims to deliver a sustainable infrastructure, minimising the negative impacts of construction and operation of our telescopes over their projected 50year lifespan, and maximising the benefits the Observatory will bring to society, in line with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.
The impact of the SKA project and its return to member states will be monitored continuously, assessed regularly and presented through periodic reports.
The SKAO has identified five sustainability priorities of particular relevance to its activities:
• Promoting sustainability in science, with a commitment to open science principles and open source software development;
• Limiting our environmental footprint through measures targeting the use of resources like potable water, waste generation, the use of renewable energy, and energy-efficient building design;
• Supporting better education and opportunities through direct employment and work experiences, as well as targeted support for partners’ training and outreach programmes, in particular those aimed at under-represented groups;
• Protecting the radio spectrum through collaboration with international partners and industry, and diplomatic engagement in international bodies;
• Supporting social equity through embedding accessibility, diversity, and inclusion in the Observatory’s activities, providing local employment opportunities, and promoting culture and heritage.
Contribution to the United Nations’ sustainable development goals
The SKAO and its partners are helping to address global challenges by contributing to many of the United Nations’ sustainable development goals to achieve a better and more sustainable future for all by 2030.
Impact stories detailing how the SKAO is working towards the sustainable development goals are available on the SKAO website at skao.int/impact
Sustainability in science
As a publicly funded project, the SKAO is committed to the FAIR (Findability, Accessibility, Interoperability, and Reusability) and open science principles, making all of its science data publicly available after a proprietary period. For the same reason, the SKAO is also committed to open source for all software development, except where this is prevented by unavoidable intellectual property issues.
Open research data and methods result in better science. It makes it possible to conduct new, innovative research, sometimes used for purposes other than originally planned. It also helps move the field forward more quickly, prevents duplication of effort, increases research transparency and visibility, and allows results to be reproduced, which is at the core of the scientific method. In addition, open data/source facilitates innovation, and offers opportunities for governments, businesses and entrepreneurs to harness it for economic, social and scientific gains.
The SKA telescopes will produce so much data that science users will usually access science-ready data products of their observations, rather than raw data. The SKAO’s focus will be on enabling the reusability of these data products by providing access to them in its science archive, accessed via the federated SKA
Regional Centre Network
(SRCNet).
The SRCNet model will lead to a major shift in how astronomy is done, from scientists separately working on downloaded data, to accessing science products on a common platform. This will enable greater sharing of tools and knowledge, increase collaboration among geographically distributed SKAO users, and enable users to reproduce the analysis of other teams.
SKAO partners are adopting open science principles in the development of the SRCNet, and through the provision of dedicated analysis tools and workflows, the SKAO will support a diverse skills base, including and beyond the traditional radio astronomy community.
The SRCNet will also aim to operate in an environmentally responsible, energy efficient manner, limiting its carbon footprint. This includes encouraging the network’s nodes to use environmentally responsible energy providers and, where possible, reporting on the fraction of reusable energy used. The SRCNet will support SKA users in writing energy efficient code, which not only requires less computing resources to run but is also tailored to the specific energy characteristics of the hardware in a particular node.
Impact: Building radio astronomy and data science expertise
In recent years, the Development in Africa with Radio Astronomy (DARA) and DARA Big Data projects have been training young Africans to take advantage of the enormous opportunities radio astronomy and data science will bring.
The projects’ reach extends beyond radio astronomy, with graduates finding work in areas as diverse as Big Data’s applications in cancer treatment and soybean breeding advances.
Highly competitive DARA and DARA Big Data scholarships have supported 50 students to study Masters or PhD
qualifications at UK and South African universities. Together, the projects have received £6.3m (€7.4m) from the Newton Fund as part of the UK’s overseas aid budget for scientific collaborations with developing countries, with matched resources from South Africa.
Building on this success, in 2024 the DARA team was granted an additional £6.5 million from the UK government. This should allow the training of 225 more students on the African continent over the next three years.
Students from Kenya and South Africa during DARA training at SARAO Hartebeesthoek Radio Astronomy Observatory. CREDIT: NRF/SARAO
Credit: Chalmers/J. Bodell
Impact: radio astronomy as a driver of innovation
From its humble beginnings in the early 20th century, radio astronomy has grown in the space of 90 years into a major field of research, enabled by cuttingedge technology. Radio telescopes and their instrumentation are technically challenging, and very often employ solutions from other sectors that further improve the technology. In return, astronomy offers solutions and techniques which are transferable to other areas of society. Astronomers also have a long tradition of sharing technology through open platforms, making it available to other users.
Technology used in radio astronomy has given rise to many spinoffs, including the invention of WiFi communication, medical imaging and reference systems for space navigation and GPS, among many others. Together, these developments have made an enormous contribution to daily life, global GDP and social wellbeing.
As the flagship international radio astronomy project of the coming decades, the SKA will fuel further technological advances with the potential to impact areas of society far removed from radio astronomy. The SKA project’s partners have considered its impact on society as core to its mission since its inception.
Low noise amplifiers in the band 1 receiver for for the SKA dishes. The Gothenburg company Low Noise Factory developed the unique low noise amplifiers for SKA band 1 that are visible in the middle of this image. They are specially designed for optimal performance without the need for cooling the feed.
Environmental footprint
The SKAO aims to measure, monitor and minimise its environmental footprint, through the conservation of resources, minimising waste generation, maximising the use of renewable energy, and minimising the use of potable water during construction, among other measures.
In South Africa, the land acquired for the SKA-Mid telescope site lies within the newly established Meerkat National Park. This protected area allows for the creation of multi-disciplinary research platforms aimed at enhancing conservation efforts and promoting resource management.
In Australia, the SKA-Low telescope is being built at Inyarrimanha Ilgari Bundara, the CSIRO Murchison Radio-astronomy Observatory, located primarily on a 3,500 km2 destocked cattle station.
The observatory is disturbing less than 0.2% of the total land that makes up the site. Among the conservation measures in place, programmes to ensure the protection and non disturbance of native species have been established.
A land rehabilitation programme will further minimise the impact of the construction of the SKA telescopes.
The telescopes and computing facilities are expected to account for 90% of the SKAO’s CO2 emissions overall. As such, reducing power needs has been a major focus of work since the design phase, and innovative design solutions are already estimated to have halved the Observatory’s projected power consumption.
The highest priority, and the best opportunity to reduce reliance on fossil fuels, is to use electricity generated by solar photovoltaic panels at the sites, with the aim of ensuring a high penetration of renewable energy to power the telescopes. The SKAO has been engaging with companies that could implement renewables-based power systems at the telescope sites.
The Observatory is also working to embed sustainability in its computing facilities, including the efficient and responsible use of water, and ensuring manufacturers’ sustainable practices are considered in the procurement process. The SKAO is also teaming up with facilities that use novel solutions for cooling computing equipment, a traditionally power-intensive task, such as the Pawsey Supercomputing Research Centre in Australia, which uses groundwater to cool its machines.
Electricity for SKAO Global Headquarters in the UK is provided by the University of Manchester and comes from 100% renewable sources. The building was designed with sustainability as a guiding principle and has obtained a Very Good BREEAM rating, an international scheme that provides independent certification of buildings’ sustainability performance.
A bird’s eye view of a cluster of SKA-Low telescopes stations. The SKAO is committed to limiting its impact on the land. Credit:
Impact: Equipping technicians with new skills
The first cohort of SKA-Low field technicians started work in 2024, following a coordinated recruitment campaign with CSIRO and the Wajarri Yamaji Aboriginal Corporation. The first 10 technicians are from the region around the telescope site, and a particular effort was made to encourage Wajarri Yamaji applicants, with seven of those hired being Wajarri employees.
The goal is to equip the group not only with the skills they need to deploy the antennas on site, but also ensure a longer-term benefit through developing skills applicable to other industries such as telecommunications and mining, which are highly active in the area. This team will grow during 2024.
“It’s very meaningful for me to work out here. I feel close to the land and my culture,” said SKA-Low Field Technician Lockie Ronan (pictured above). “I think it opens a lot of doors for young Indigenous people to come out here and connect with the land and maybe appreciate the Country a bit more. My parents and grandparents are proud to know I’m out here working on this project on my Pop’s land.”
Education and opportunities
Astronomy is well-known for its ability to attract young people to science and technology careers, and drive education and training that can also help solve major societal challenges and answer immediate crises. As a beacon of inspiration for the next generation, the SKAO is leading some to careers in science, engineering, and technology. Building the SKA telescopes is already producing a cohort of highly accomplished engineers and scientists, who will be capable of applying their talents to a broad range of areas of great benefit to the member states’ economies and societies.
The SKA Project is already having an impact on younger generations in its host countries.
In Western Australia, CSIRO’s investment in education is contributing to the growth of astronomy in Australia, with teacher training and professional development workshops, as well as site visits for schools local to the observatory site, secondary student work experience programs, tertiary undergraduate studentships, and a large cohort of graduate students across Australia. The SKAO has also partnered with the International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research (ICRAR) on the popular science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) Stargirls camp,
which provides opportunities for girls and gender minorities to practise real-world astronomy research skills and hear from leading experts in the field.
In South Africa, SARAO has been investing heavily in education and human capital development for more than a decade, including through its Robotics Schools Programme, launched to develop and inspire interest in STEM skills in local schools around the SKA-Mid site.
SARAO has also helped to recruit qualified science and maths teachers, invested in educational facilities and technical training for local artisans in the Northern Cape region, and provided bursaries for local students to attend technical colleges and universities. It has also provided over 1,600 grants and bursaries to students nationally and in other African countries to study science and engineering, from graduate degrees to post-doctoral studies.
SKAO Global HQ in the UK regularly hosts work experience students from nearby schools to learn from our experts and engage in science and engineering activities, and attends major public outreach events such as the Bluedot festival, which attracts tens of thousands of people annually.
Children answer the question “what will the SKA telescopes discover?” at Astrofest 2023 in Perth. Credit: SKAO
Credit: SKAO
Satellite trails over Pentre Ifan burial chamber, Pembrokeshire, Wales
Credit: Max Alexander, Our Fragile Space exhibition
Radio spectrum
The SKA telescope sites are located in radio quiet zones, where strict laws regulate the use and installation of transmitting equipment in order to protect astronomical observations from disturbance by terrestrial sources of interference. However, satellites and aircraft will still pass over the sites, potentially producing interference in the frequency bands in which the SKA telescopes will observe.
Working closely with other astronomy organisations, industry and international regulatory bodies, the SKAO is helping to coordinate and negotiate special agreements to mitigate the impact of satellite constellations and keep the night sky a sustainable resource for all.
This includes co-hosting the International Astronomical Union’s Centre for the Protection of the Dark and Quiet Sky from Satellite Constellation Interference (CPS), established in early 2022, alongside the US National Science Foundation’s NOIRLab.
The SKAO has become a leading voice on protecting radio astronomy and the wider issue of space sustainability, engaging
with all relevant stakeholders to raise awareness of this issue with all relevant parties and at all levels. This dialogue has proven fruitful and some mitigation measures have already been adopted by satellite operators.
On the legislative front, the SKAO is actively involved in inter-governmental discussions on these issues through key United Nations bodies. Since September 2021, the SKAO has been a permanent observer on the UN Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (COPUOS), the only UN committee dedicated exclusively to space matters. The Observatory is also a Sector Member of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), the UN’s specialised agency responsible for allocating use of the radio spectrum.
This diplomatic engagement has already yielded several major achievements. Among the most significant, in June 2024 UN COPUOS added an item on astronomy and satellite constellations to its agenda for the next five years.
We recognize the importance of continued discussion, in the UN COPUOS and ITU frameworks, as well as with the IAU on the impact of large constellations of satellites on astronomy for the protection of the dark and quiet skies.
G7 Science and Technology Ministers’ Communique
Social equity
With diversity and inclusion among its core values, the SKAO aims to contribute to fair and equitable outcomes for diverse individuals and groups within the Observatory and in its stakeholder communities.
Across its global partnership, the Observatory is working to deliver accessible and equitable processes and tools, which are essential to support the broadest possible SKA scientific user community and enable the best, highest impact science. This commitment is being built into the design of all user-facing SKAO products, including those required for the preparation and submission of scientific proposals, and in the assessment of proposals and allocation of telescope time.
In both Australia and South Africa, the SKA telescopes are being constructed on land that has strong ties to Indigenous heritage; respecting and celebrating these cultures, the local populations, and their history and traditions is an intrinsic part of the Observatory.
The SKAO is building on long-running initiatives established by CSIRO and SARAO, and developing new ones to ensure local community participation and to support the uplift of the local economies around the telescope sites.
In South Africa, contractors are expected to source goods and services from local vendors and providers. In the year following the start of on-site construction, SKA-Mid infrastructure contractor Power Adenco employed 56 local community members on the site, more than half aged between 18-35 years old.
In Australia, SKA-Low infrastructure contractor Ventia has engaged local Wajarri companies and worked with the SKAO to encourage direct employment of Wajarri staff, as well as encouraging their subcontractors to do the same.
As a result, Ventia has consistently exceeded 20-25% Wajarri employment on site. The SKAO has also had significant engagement with local and regional small and medium-sized enterprises, awarding contracts or establishing accounts with more than 80 businesses in Geraldton and the Mid West region.
Shared Sky
Tens of thousands of people around the world have experienced Shared Sky, an Indigenous art-astronomy exhibition commissioned by the SKAO that raises awareness of the rich heritage and culture of Indigenous peoples around the SKA telescope sites. It features Indigenous Australian and South African artists in a collaborative exhibition that celebrates humanity’s ancient cultural wisdom. This embodies the spirit of the international science and engineering collaboration that is the SKA project itself, bringing together nations to study the same sky.
Shared Sky has toured the world since 2014, and has been exhibited at venues including the European Commission Headquarters in Brussels, John Curtin Gallery in Perth, Iziko South African National Gallery in Cape Town, Manchester Library, Jodrell Bank Discovery Centre and the Genoa Science Festival. The exhibition has also given rise to artist workshops and collaborative artworks, teaching the public techniques such as Aboriginal dot painting.
A successor of the exhibition was created in 2024 with the official launch at the International Astronomical Union General Assembly hosted in Cape Town, South Africa, in August.
Seven Sisters
“My painting is about the Seven Sisters, one is sick and the rest are looking after her.”
Credit: Susan Merry
SKA Observatory
@SKAO
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www.skao.int Produced by the SKA Observatory – July 2024
We recognise and acknowledge the Indigenous peoples and cultures that have traditionally lived on the lands on which our facilities are located. In Australia, we acknowledge the Wajarri Yamaji as the Traditional Owners and Native Title Holders of Inyarrimanha Ilgari Bundara, the CSIRO Murchison Radio-astronomy Observatory, the site where the SKA-Low telescope is being built.
