On July 24th IDTechEx attended the launch of the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) project, at the Science Museum in London. Members of the SKA's consortium, such as Prof Schilizzi, Prof Wilkinson and Prof Dewdney gave insight into the challenges and opportunities related to the research programme which has already been in the making for over 2 decades.
SKA concept
The Square Kilometre Array (SKA) is a radio telescope currently under development by an international consortium who aim to probe fundamental physics, the origin and evolution of the Universe, the structure of the Milky Way Galaxy, and the formation and distribution of planets.
SKA was first conceived 20 years ago, with ideas initially developed in the UK and the Netherlands, but soon the project became a unifying programme for the international radio astronomy community. The SKA will have an effective collective area of up to 1,000,000 m2, providing sensitivity that would be 40 times higher than the Expanded Very Large Array. The size of the array is determined by the requirements to image the characteristic emission from the commonest element in the universe, hydrogen, at great distances (see image below).
1000-1500 dishes would be located in the central 5km or so and a grand total of 2,000 to 3,000 dishes will be required when including the sparse aperture e arrays.
Data transport rates are likely to be in the range of 100 Giga-bits /sec to multi-Tera-bits/ sec with Petaflop capacity required for the central processor.
Low radio frequency interference required means that the SKA site must be away from big cities with candidate sites in western Australia and Southern Africa.
Much of the required technology is being developed in the course of specific design studies and the construction for several SKA pathfinder instruments around the world.
The necessity for industrial involvement is readily apparent with a big number of opportunities available in terms of development of technologies and the engineering characteristics.
Timelines - Costs
The following timeline gives an idea of the timelines for the project implementation:
2008-2012 costed system design
2011 site selection
2012 proposal for construction funding
2012-2016 detailed design and Phase 1 construction (4 stations built)
2015 early science with Phase 1
2016-2020 construction of full array at low and mid-frequencies
55 institutes in 19 countries are involved in this project that is estimated to cost approximately €1.5 billion for phase 1 and 2 (250 stations built) with an operation cost in excess of €100 million a year.
Opportunities
IDTechEx identified opportunities relating to emerging technologies that would be of great interest and necessary for the successful implementation of the SKA programme.
Phil Diamond, director of the JBCA, commented that although the central part of the array would be grid connected, the sparse stations, located in very remote sites and away from grid access would probably require solar power in order to run. Dr Diamond commented that developments in energy storage would also be necessary in order to be able to power the stations during the hours of no daylight.
Design for Manufacture (DFM) will also play a large role.
- Reducing costs while maintaining quality.
- Simplifying and reducing parts counts.
- Achieving minimum field assembly and designing for easy shipping/transport.
- Long design-lifetime.
Prototypes are already being designed and manufacturing technologies that will be able to guarantee robust, high-performing structures while minimizing costs are necessary for the success of SKA. For that reason, industrial partners should get involved in the early phases of the project in order to develop the necessary processes and tools for the production of the telescope's components.
For more information visit www.skatelescope.org 
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