SKAO Achieves Major Milestone with First SKA-Mid Dish Construction in South Africa

Key Highlight

• SKAO has successfully assembled the SKA-Mid dish in South Africa.

The Square Kilometre Array Observatory (SKAO) has celebrated a major construction milestone with the successful assembly of the first SKA-Mid dish in South Africa. A team comprising members from the SKAO, the South African Radio Astronomy Observatory (SARAO), and China’s CETC54 executed the “big lift,” placing the 15-meter-wide main reflector onto the telescope pedestal. CETC54, responsible for manufacturing the dishes, also led the consortium of ten countries involved in their design.

“This year’s progress across the Observatory has been amazing. Seeing the first SKA-Mid dish go up is a significant moment as we move towards the first stage of telescope delivery,” said Luca Stringhetti, SKAO Acting Director of Programmes. There have been challenges, as we anticipated there would be. Still, it is thanks to the coordinated effort and support of our partners across the globe, combined with significant logistical work by teams at the telescope sites, that we have been able to deploy the first dish structure and four stations on the ground in both of our telescope host countries.”

Square Kilometre Array (SKA)-Mid’s 197 dishes will stretch across 150 km in the Northern Cape province and cover a wide frequency range, from 350 Megahertz (MHz) to 15.4 Gigahertz (GHz), with a goal of up to 24 GHz in the future. They can operate as a whole or as sub-arrays. They will enable a wide range of science, from studying transient events such as fast radio bursts to making detailed studies of the gas distribution within galaxies and detecting the complex organic molecules that can form the building blocks of life.  

“CETC54 is excited and proud to install the first SKA-Mid dish in South Africa, which will operate for over 50 years. Since its conception, the SKA project has embodied the collective aspirations and efforts of many institutions in the pursuit of cosmic exploration,” said Wang Dawei, SKA-Mid Dish Project Manager at CETC54. “The precise installation of the main reflector is just the first step, and we will continue to implement high-precision measurement adjustments and accurate calibration on the antennas to deliver the dishes to the SKAO’s exacting quality standards.”

SKAO is rolling out both SKA telescopes in a phased manner. This strategy ensures they deliver the most effective instruments possible at each stage, progressing toward fully realizing the Observatory and managing the wide range of challenges encountered. We are now completing one of the four dishes for the first stage of SKA-Mid delivery, called Array Assembly 0.5 (AA0.5). This phase lets us test the dish and review the process before we start full-scale production”.

“As a team, we’re now fully focused on the next stage because we have two more dish structures on site, ready for assembly,” said SKA-Mid Site Construction Director Tracy Cheetham. “This environment is complex, with many variables, but we are well-positioned to move forward with the next steps toward AA0.5.”

SKAO is rolling out both SKA telescopes in phases.This strategy means the SKAO can deliver the most effective instruments possible at each stage, leading towards fully realising the Observatory and managing the wide range of challenges encountered. The dish now being completed is one of four that will comprise the first stage of SKA-Mid delivery, known as Array Assembly 0.5 (AA0.5). This allows for testing and a process review before full-scale dish production.

“There’s a lot of work ahead of us, but for everyone involved, this is a special moment that represents years of toil by people worldwide, so I want to thank them for their dedication in getting us here. Special thanks must go to our partners at SARAO and CETC54 for their professionalism and commitment – the SKAO SKA-mid-milestone construction this collaboration is bearing fruit,” said SKA-Mid Senior Project Manager Ben Lewis. “The first of anything is always the most challenging, and we have learnt a lot from a logistical and technical perspective from this first dish. That will inform our planning as we deliver a four-dish array early next year before ramping up to ‘full speed’ construction in 2025”.