Last week the annual SKA Engineering
meeting was held in Rotterdam. The SKA Project is now well into the
pre-construction phase with 12 Consortia carrying out design work to
refine and progress the technologies and systems following the
Preliminary Design Reviews (PDR) completed in 2016. These consortia
are spread across the globe and are constituted from a variety of
institutes and commercial companies. The consortia are now all working
towards their Critical Design Reviews (CDR) in the very near future
within tight cost-capped budgets. The output of these CDRs will act as
the basis for the Construction Plan and Proposal in 2018. The picture
above shows Phil Diamond, Director General of the SKA Office, giving
one of the opening presentations of the meeting.