Square Kilometre Array program Report
New talent is joining the MNRF-funded Australian SKA program. We are currently interviewing a number of engineers and electronics technicians who are eager to join our team. Vacation students Richard Dixon and Paul Thompson have also joined the SKA program for the summer. Richard is developing an AIPS++ package that will speed up the analysis portion of our radio interference site surveys and enable cross-referencing with the Australian Communications Authority Database. Paul is designing a feed support and movement system for the 0.9-m Luneburg Lens acquired from Russia last year. Graeme James gives a summary of cross-divisional work on the Luneburg Lens elsewhere in this issue.
Currently we are working hard to fine-tune strategies and concepts for the SKA program. High on the agenda is the condensation of our strategy into a program definition and a business plan for the MNRF-II contract. At the technical level, many of us are honing SKA concepts based on Luneburg Lens and cylindrical reflector technologies. This work is taking place through a number of Australian SKA Consortium (ASKAC) working groups. We will give an overview of our concepts to the international SKA Engineering Management Team (EMT) in conjunction with this years' SKA meeting in Holland. More detail will be given in submissions to the SKA meeting proper and to the General Assembly of the International Union of Radio Science in Maastricht.
On the national scene we are taking no break from communicating our work. Graeme James is coordinating a special SKA session at the Workshop on Applications of Radio Science at Leura in February. Michelle Story and Nïma have also been working hard on an outreach program, in conjunction with the University of Sydney. The program will see high school students monitoring spectrum usage and learning about the importance of radio quietness for astronomy. Finally, support is currently being given to Western Australia, South Australia, New South Wales and Queensland in determining appropriate areas for possible SKA sites. Further site characterisation of various inland Australian sites is being planned, in association with the states, for 2003 and will be aided by Mal Smith's new auto-correlator backend.
On the international scene the focus has been on SKA science. An SKA science workshop was held in Bologna in January alongside a meeting of the International SKA Steering Committee (ISSC). Carole Jackson (ANU) attended and presented some interesting work on matching science drivers and telescope designs in a quantitative way.
A meeting on "high resolution options for the SKA" was held in December 2001 in Bonn. Steven Tingay (ATNF) attended and participated in discussions aimed at the science possible from various long baseline SKA configuration options. We can look forward to much interesting dialogue this year as we continue our efforts to mate scientific drivers and telescope design.
Aaron Chippendale
(Aaron.Chippendale@csiro.au)