SKA Design
SKA Global Consortia
Adaptive Array Systems Limited (AASL)
Part of the following consortia:
University of Western Australia
Part of the following consortia:
STFC Rutherford Appleton Laboratory
Part of the following consortia:
SKA South Africa (Johannesburg Office)
Part of the following consortia:
National Physical Laboratory (NPL)
Part of the following consortia:
Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University (NMMU)
Part of the following consortia:
Tsinghua University/ Peking University
Part of the following consortia:
Australia Academic and Research Network (AARNet)
Part of the following consortia:
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
Part of the following consortia:
Open Parallel Ltd
Part of the following consortia:
University of Auckland
Part of the following consortia:
Massey University
Part of the following consortia:
AUT University
Part of the following consortia:
Universidad Politécnica de Madrid (UPM)
Part of the following consortia:
Reutech Radar Systems (Division of Reutech Limited)
Part of the following consortia:
Canadian Institute of Theoretical Astrophysics (CITA)
Part of the following consortia:
NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL)
Part of the following consortia:
Adaptative Array Systems Limited
Part of the following consortia:
University of Malta
Part of the following consortia:
Canadian Astronomy Data Center
Part of the following consortia:
Swinburne University of Technology
Part of the following consortia:
Radio Quiet Zone Solutions (RQZ)
Part of the following consortia:
German Long Wavelength Consortium (GLOW)
Part of the following consortia:
Netherlands eScience Center (NLeSC)
Part of the following consortia:
Selex Electronic Systems
Part of the following consortia:
Oxford University
Part of the following consortia:
University of Cambridge
Part of the following consortia:
University of Manchester
Part of the following consortia:
Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) ATC
Part of the following consortia:
Chalmers University / Onsala Space Observatory
Part of the following consortia:
Ingeniería de Sistemas para la Defensa de España (ISDEFE)
Part of the following consortia:
Fundación Centro de Supercomputación (FCSCL)
Part of the following consortia:
Barcelona Supercomputing Center
Part of the following consortia:
Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía (IAA)
Part of the following consortia:
Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR)
Part of the following consortia:
SKA South Africa (Cape Town Office)
Part of the following consortia:
GeoSpace Sciences Research Centre (CICGE-FCUP)
Part of the following consortia:
Instituto de Telecomunicações
Part of the following consortia:
Compucon New Zealand
Part of the following consortia:
Institute for Radio Astronomy and Space Research
Part of the following consortia:
Victoria University of Wellington
Part of the following consortia:
Joint Institute for VLBI in Europe (JIVE)
Part of the following consortia:
Netherlands Institute for Radio Astronomy (ASTRON)
Part of the following consortia:
National Institute for Astrophysics (INAF)
Part of the following consortia:
Tata Consulting Services
Part of the following consortia:
Tata Research, Development and Design Centre (TRDDC)
Part of the following consortia:
National Centre for Radio Astrophysics (NCRA)
Part of the following consortia:
Vertex Antennentechnik
Part of the following consortia:
EM Software and Systems (EMSS)
Part of the following consortia:
Fraunhofer Institute for Applied Solid State Physics (IAF)
Part of the following consortia:
Max Plank Institute for Radio Astronomy (MPIfRA)
Part of the following consortia:
University of Bordeaux
Part of the following consortia:
Paris/Nançay Observatory
Part of the following consortia:
Joint Laboratory for Radio Astronomy Technology (JLRAT)
Part of the following consortia:
Key Lab of Aperture Array and Space Application (KLAASA)
Part of the following consortia:
University of British Columbia
Part of the following consortia:
National Research Council of Canada (NRC)
Part of the following consortia:
International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research (ICRAR)
Part of the following consortia:
Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO)
Part of the following consortia:
Filter Consortia
Zoom in on the map above and click on each partner organisation to see what part or parts of the SKA jigsaw they will be working on, and find out more about each partner and their own background.
The SKA design is a global effort by 12 international engineering consortia representing 500 engineers and scientists in 20 countries all feeding in to making the SKA a truly exceptional instrument. The list of partners is vast and can be seen all over the map above.
The consortia are responsible for working out the look and functionality of the different elements of the SKA, and ensuring that they will all work together. With a telescope of this nature, located on two different continents and generating unprecedented amounts of data, this is a formidable challenge.
The 12 consortia are made up of research institutions and industry partners which are spread across the globe, with each one having a designated lead institution that coordinates the work. They operate in conjunction with a specialist project manager based at SKA Headquarters in the UK.
Each consortium has been tasked with designing a particular element of the SKA – from the very visible parts like the dishes or the infrastructure at each site, to the essential software and networking that will allow the SKA’s arrays to act as one enormous telescope. In the final design, the different elements will come together like the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle.
Nine of the consortia have focused on a component of the telescope, each critical to the overall success of the project, while three others have focused on developing advanced instrumentation for the telescope. Click on the links below to find out more about each one and the institutions behind the design:
- Assembly, Integration and Verification (AIV)
- Central Signal Processor (CSP)
- Dish (DSH)
- Infrastructure Africa (INFRA SA)
- Infrastructure Australia (INFRA AU)
- Low-Frequency Aperture Array (LFAA)
- Signal and Data Transport (SaDT)
- Science Data Processor (SDP)
- Telescope Manager (TM)
An essential part of each consortium’s role is to ensure that their design ultimately enables the SKA to achieve its science goals. This means scientists and engineers have worked closely together to ensure that the final design meets the science community’s requirements. To that end, the SKA formed the Science Working Groups (SWGs) to feed in to the process. You can find more details on the SWGs on the SKA Science site [external link].
Since the consortia were first formed in 2013, the design of the SKA has evolved in response to available funding and to take account of scientific advances. In December 2014, the process reached its first milestone, with the start of the Preliminary Design Reviews (PDRs). Each consortium presented its detailed proposals for assessment by an expert panel from the SKA and external organisations, and the results were fed back in to the ongoing design work.
There followed three years of effort by the international consortia to arrive at the Critical Design Reviews (CDR), which began in 2018 and culminated in a System CDR in late 2019. This was one of the last and most pivotal stages before construction activities could begin, where the design documentation for each part of the SKA was analysed in the finest detail, and determinations were made about the readiness of the consortia. This milestone was reached in December 2019.
To learn more about the design elements and the consortia, check out our interactive CDR platform.
The CDR platform is designed to be a central hub for updates, chronicling each major step on the road towards SKA construction and showcasing the technological innovations that are making it possible.
As well as capturing international teams’ progress towards and beyond their CDRs, the platform features a wide range of news stories, profiles, case studies, photos and videos, providing context on the work that has been done so far.