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Cutting-Edge Engineering for the World's Largest Radio Telescope

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Cutting-Edge Engineering for the World's Largest Radio Telescope SKAO Cutting-edge engineering for the world’s largest radio telescope Cutting-edge engineering for the world’s largest radio telescope Approaching a technological challenge on the scale of the SKA is formidable... while building on 60 years of radio- astronomy developments, the huge increase in scale from existing facilities demands a revolutionary break from traditional radio telescope design and radical developments in processing, computer speeds and the supporting technological infrastructure. To answer this challenge the SKA has been broken down into various elements that will form the final SKA telescope. Each element is managed by an international consortium comprising world leading experts in their fields. The SKA Office, staffed with engineering domain experts, systems engineers, scientists and managers, centralises the project management and system design. SKAO The design work was awarded through the SKA Office to these Consortia, made up of over 100 of some of the world’s top research institutions and companies, drawn primarily from the SKA Member countries but also beyond. Following the delivery of a detailed design package in 2016, in 2018 nine consortia are having their Critical Design Reviews (CDR) to deliver the final design documentation to prepare a construction proposal for government approval. The other three consortia are part of the SKA’s Advanced Instrumentation Programme, which develops future instrumention for the SKA. The 2018 SKA CalenDaR aims to recognise the immense work conducted by these hundreds of dedicated engineers and project managers from around the world over the past five years. Without their crucial work, the SKA’s ambitious science programme would not be possible. As you browse through the calendar, we hope you will get a feel for the breadth and truly global nature of the work that has gone on. We wish you all an excellent and successful year 2018! SKA Organisation January 2018 February 2018 March 2018 April 2018 May 2018 June 2018 July 2018 August 2018 September 2018 October 2018 November 2018 December 2018 Infrastructure – laying the foundations After conducting geological surveys to identify a suitable location, in June 2017 the infrastructure team from SARAO poured the concrete foundation – using 120m3 of concrete – for the first SKA prototype dish at the South African SKA site in the Karoo. The foundation comprises eight 750mm diameter piles, driven to about 10.5m below the natural ground level and a 7m diameter, 1.5m deep reinforced pile cap/base where the dish prototype will be installed. Pull tests were subsequently conducted to test the stability of the foundation. In total, 133 such foundations will have to be poured in Phase 1 of construction to accommodate the SKA dishes. Telalo Lekalake / SARAO Lekalake / Telalo Credit: The Infrastructure element covers both the Infrastructure in Africa and in Australia. It includes all work undertaken to deploy and be able to operate the SKA in both countries. Infrastructure includes roads, buildings, power generation JANUARY and distribution, reticulation, vehicles, cranes and specialist equipment needed for maintenance that are not included in the supply of the other elements. The INFRA SA Consortium is led and managed by SKA South Africa (now integrated 2018 into the South African Radio Astronomy Observatory, SARAO) Infrastructure team, which has previously worked on the infrastructure for both the KAT7 and MeerKAT telescopes. Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday Sunday 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Full Moon 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 New Moon 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 Australia National Day Date of the founding of Sydney, the first European settlement in Australia, 1788. 29 30 31 Full Moon Dishes – manufacturing of the moulds & panels Pictured here are the 66 moulds used to manufacture the 66 panels of the main reflector for the 18m x 15m SKA dish prototype, at the CETC54 factory in Shijiazhuang, China. In 2017, CETC54 produced the moulds and the panels, ready for first assembly of a full prototype in China and shipment and installation of another one at the South African SKA site in 2018. Each panel has a unique shape to create the exact curvature it needs for its position on the reflector. In front, a panel’s backup W. Garnier W. / SKA Organisation structure can be seen as the panel is fitted on the mould. Credit: The Dish element of the SKA is probably what most people think of as a radio telescope. The international Consortium is responsible for the design and verification of the antenna structure, optics, feed suites, receivers, and FEBRUARY all supporting systems and infrastructure ahead of the production of the 133 SKA-mid dishes in Phase 1 of construction of the SKA. The selected design for the SKA dish is a German / Chinese collaboration between MT 2018 Mechatronics and CETC54. The consortium is led by CETC54 in China. Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday Sunday 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 New Zealand National Day Waitangi Day, signing of the Treaty of Waitangi in 1840. 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 New Moon 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 Infrastructure – solar power to study the stars Power is a huge challenge for the SKA, with power-hungry distributed infrastructure located in very remote areas, and the two SKA sites aim to keep their carbon footprint to a minimum. Whilst in South Africa the core of the SKA site will be able to tap into local grid power, in Australia all the electrical power must be produced on site. Pictured here is the newly built power station at the Murchison Radio-astronomy Observatory (MRO) in Western Australia, which is home to two SKA precursors (ASKAP and the MWA) and the future site for SKA1-low. The power station consists of a 1.85 MW solar array, a lithium-ion battery that can store 2.6 MWh, and four diesel generators. It is the first hybrid-renewable facility to power a remote astronomical observatory. It was built by Australian companies Horizon Power and Energy Made Clean (EMC) in partnership with CSIRO, Australia’s national science agency, which owns and operates the MRO. CSIRO modelling indicates that using this photovoltaic system and storage battery saves 650,000 – 840,000 litres of diesel a year and cuts carbon dioxide emissions by 1,700 – 2,200 tonnes a year. What makes this power station unique is the RFI shielding designed by CSIRO and EMC. The shielding keeps electromagnetic interference to levels that don’t harm the radio astronomy observations. It is a world first and will be crucial for SKA1-low, which will be powered by a similar renewable generation system. In addition, because the SKA1-Low antennas will be spread over a distance of some 65 km, the outer stations may be equipped with their own local solar power stations. CSIRO / Red Empire Media Credit: The Infrastructure element covers both the Infrastructure in Africa and in Australia. It includes all work undertaken to deploy and be able to operate the SKA in both countries. Infrastructure includes roads, buildings, power generation MARCH and distribution, reticulation, vehicles, cranes and specialist equipment needed for maintenance that are not included in the supply of the other elements. The 2018 INFRA AU Consortium is led and managed by CSIRO in Australia. Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday Sunday 1 2 3 4 Full Moon 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 New Moon 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 Full Moon Antennas – deployment in the Outback Aerial view of the partially completed Aperture Array Verification System 1 (AAVS1) main station and its 256 antennas for the SKA-low telescope at the Murchison Radio astronomy Observatory in Western Australia. An international team with engineers from the UK, the Netherlands, Malta, Italy and Australia undertook its installation on site in 2017. All field components are clearly visible, showing the antennas mounted on their concrete bases in the lower half. The white top-node, hosting the low-noise amplifiers and Radio-Frequency over Fibre (RFoF), can be found at the upper part of the antennas. The black hybrid cables seen weaving between the antennas host 2 copper wires to transfer DC power to the antenna electronics. They also host the fibre optic cable to transfer the two polarizations to the processing system. The Antenna and Power Interface Unit (APIU) can be seen in the middle of the station. It is connected to mains power, as well as fibre optic cable to transport the RFoF-signal to the Central Processing Facility ICRAR-Curtin University a few kilometres away. Credit: The Low-Frequency Aperture Array (LFAA) element is the set of antennas, on board amplifiers and local processing required for the SKA-low telescope, representing over 130,000 low frequency antennas covering the 50 MHz to 350 MHz frequency range to APRIL be installed at the Australian SKA site in Western Australia. LFAA includes the design of the local station signal processing and hardware required to combine the antennas and the transport of antenna data to the station processing, called the Antenna Array 2018 Verification System 1 or AAVS1. The consortium is led by ASTRON in the Netherlands. Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday Sunday 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 New Moon 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 The Netherlands National Day King’s Day, King Willem-Alexander’s birthday. South Africa National Day First democratic general election in 1994.
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