The Square Kilometre Array (SKA) Observatory, a new intergovernmental organisation dedicated to radio astronomy, has been launched following the first meeting of the observatory’s council last week.
In a statement, the South African Radio Astronomy Observatory (SARAO) says the new observatory, known as SKAO, is the world’s second intergovernmental organisation to be dedicated to astronomy.
Headquartered in the UK on the grounds of the Jodrell Bank UNESCO World Heritage Site, with sites in Australia and South Africa, SKAO is tasked with building and operating the two largest and most complex radio telescope networks ever conceived to address fundamental questions about our universe, says SARAO.
“This is a historic moment for radio astronomy,” says Dr Catherine Cesarsky, appointed first chairperson of the SKAO council.
“Behind today’s milestone, there are countries that had the vision to get deeply involved because they saw the wider benefits their participation in SKAO could bring to build an ecosystem of science and technology involving fundamental research, computing, engineering and skills for the next generation, which are essential in a 21st century digital economy.”
Entering an exciting phase
SKAO’s telescope in South Africa will be composed of 197 15-metre-diameter dishes located in the Karoo region, 64 of which already exist and are operated by SARAO, while the telescope in Australia will be composed of 131 072 two-metre-tall antennas located on the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation’s Murchison Radio-astronomy Observatory.
Says Dr Blade Nzimande, SA’s minister of higher education, science and innovation: “Establishment of the SKA Observatory enables the SKA project to enter an exciting phase – implementation of cutting-edge scientific and technical designs that have been conceptualised by multinational teams, including many South African scientists and engineers, over the past few years.
“We are excited by the fact that the SKA Observatory will be the first, and only, science inter-governmental organisation where Africa will play a strategic leading role. The SKA project will act as a catalyst for science, technology and engineering innovation, providing commercial opportunities to the local high-tech industry, and creating the potential to put Africa on the map as a global science and innovation partner,” Nzimande notes.
According to SARAO, the creation of SKAO follows a decade of detailed engineering design work, scientific prioritisation and policy development under the supervision of its predecessor the SKA Organisation, supported by more than 500 engineers, over 1 000 scientists and dozens of policy-makers in more than 20 countries; and is the result of 30 years of thinking and research and development since discussions first took place about developing a next-generation radio telescope.
“Today marks the birth of a new observatory,” says Professor Philip Diamond, appointed first director-general of SKAO. “And not just any observatory – this is one of the mega-science facilities of the 21st century.
“It is the culmination of many years of work and I wish to congratulate everyone in the SKA community and in our partner governments and institutions who have worked so hard to make this happen. For our community, this is about participating in one of the great scientific adventures of the coming decades. It is about skills, technology, innovation, industrial return and spin-offs, but fundamentally it is about a wonderful scientific journey that we are now embarking on.”
Keeping busy
The first SKAO Council meeting followed the signature of the SKA treaty, formally known as the Convention establishing the SKA Observatory, on 12 March 2019 in Rome, and its subsequent ratification by Australia, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, SA and the UK and entry into force on 15 January 2021, says SARAO.
The council comprises representatives from the observatory’s member states, as well as observer countries aspiring to join SKAO.
Among these are countries that took part in the design phase of the SKA, such as Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland, and whose future accession to SKAO is expected in the coming weeks and months, once their national processes have been completed. Representatives of national bodies in Japan and South Korea complement the select list of observers in the SKAO council.
At its first meeting, the SKAO council approved policies and procedures that have been prepared in recent months – covering governance, funding, programmatic and HR matters, among others. These approvals are required to transfer staff and assets from the SKA Organisation to the Observatory and allow the latter to become a functioning entity.
“The coming months will keep us very busy, with hopefully new countries formalising their accession to SKAO and the expected key decision of the SKAO council giving us green light to start the construction of the telescopes,” adds Diamond.
SKAO will begin recruitment in Australia and South Africa in the next few months, working alongside local partners CSIRO and SARAO to supervise construction, which is expected to last eight years, with early science opportunities starting in the mid-2020s.
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