Name and Location
Square Kilometre Array (SKA) project, Africa and Australia.

Client
The international SKA project is run by the UK-based SKA Organisation, which currently comprises ten countries – Australia, Canada, China, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, New Zealand, South Africa, Sweden and the UK. India is an associate member and is expected to become a full member shortly.

The SKA Organisation formalises relationships between the international partners and centralises the leadership project.

The project in South Africa is the responsibility of a separate, local organisation, SKA SA.

Project Description
The SKA will provide one-million square metres of collecting area, which demands a revolutionary break from traditional radio-telescope design.

The project will use three types of antennas (radio-wave receptors) – dishes, midfrequency 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 first phase of the SKA, known as SKA1, will result in the creation of two complementary instruments, one each in South Africa and Australia.

The South African instrument will comprise about 200 dishes, will operate in the 350 MHz to 14 GHz frequency range and is known as SKA1_Mid. The Australian instrument will comprise more than 100 000 (perhaps as many as 130 000) dipole antennas, will operate in the 50 MHz to 350 MHz frequency range and is called SKA1_Low.

SKA1 Mid will include the 64 dishes of the South African precursor to the SKA, the MeerKAT radio telescope array, being built in the Karoo region. Australia’s precursor, the Australian SKA Pathfinder (better known as Askap and already in operation) 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.

Phase 1 (SKA1) will comprise about 10% of the array and will include dishes and low-frequency aperture arrays.

The Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder and South Africa’s Meerkat precursor dishes will be incorporated in the SKA1. The Murchison Widefield Array, located at the Australia site, is another precursor telescope to the SKA.

Phase 2 (SKA2) will extend the array with midfrequency aperture arrays and further dishes.

All the dishes for SKA2 will be located in Africa.

All the low-frequency aperture arrays will be located in Australia.

All the midfrequency aperture arrays will be built in Southern Africa.

The phased construction of the telescope will mean that the SKA can start operating before construction is completed.

Value
SKA1 is expected to cost €650-million (about R8.9-billion).

Duration
The first elements of SKA1 should be deployed in 2016 and construction of SKA1 should start in 2018 and be completed in 2023.

Latest Developments
The European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme has granted the SKA project €5-million for the detailed design of infrastructure required at the two SKA telescope cohost sites – the Murchison region of Western Australia and South Africa’s Karoo.

The funds will be used to advance work at the SKA global headquarters, in the UK, and by the two teams responsible for delivering the SKA’s infrastructure design –  Infrastructure Australia, led by Australia's Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation, in partnership with Aurecon Australasia; and Infrastructure South Africa, led by SKA South Africa.

An SKA SA-led consortium has received about €2.25-million, or about R40.3-million, of the funding to undertake the detailed design of the SKA1_MID infrastructure and power elements in South Africa.

This includes power networks, roads, buildings, antenna foundations, water and sanitation, site monitoring, security, communications and vehicles.

Led by SKA SA site operations GM Tracy Cheetham, the Infrastructure South Africa team includes 11 SKA SA staff members, three graduate professionals, six retired engineers from the South African Institute for Civil Engineering Development Projects and other South African industry partners.

South African industry partners are being appointed to assist with the detailed design of the SKA1_MID antenna foundations and the construction of an antenna foundation prototype on site, as well as undertake the detailed design of the building and power facility upgrades required for SKA1_MID.

The main deliverables will include capital, operations and maintenance cost plan updates a topographical survey of the SKA1_MID site, a geotechnical and geohydrological investigation of the SKA1_MID site; road maintenance usage reports, radio frequency interference control plans for infrastructure and power subelements, a power analysis report, antenna foundation prototype and detailed design, detailed design reports of all infrastructure and power subelements, a suite of management plan; and a critical design review.

The detailed design started in April 2015 and is expected to be completed in April 2017.

Key Contracts and Suppliers
South Africa: Neotel/Broadband Infraco joint venture, or JV (bandwidth network); Eskom (electricity); Telkom (telecommunications); and Nokia Siemens Networks, Intel, Seacom, Dimension Data, Microsoft and IBM (connectivity support).

On Budget and on Time?
The project is reportedly on course.

Contact Details for Project Information
Council for Scientific and Industrial Research general and technical enquiries, Tendani Tsedu, tel +27 12 841 3417.
SKA South Africa, tel +27 11 442 2434, fax +27 11 442 2454 or email tcheetham@ska.ac.za.
SKA Organisation chief communication officer William Garnier, tel +44 161 306 9613 or email w.garnier@skatelescope.org.