The SKA Observatory has reached its first construction milestone, with the first Array Assembly, AA0.5, of the SKA-Low telescope officially delivered. The four-station AA0.5 array, each made up of 256 log-dipole antennas, completed a final phase of verification testing, demonstrating the necessary architecture and supply chain is in place and working. SKA-Low Assembly, Integration and Verification Lead Engineer Lucio Tirone said, “We now have an operational interferometer array formed by four stations, a synchronisation and timing system, a correlator and beamformer, a science and non-science data network and a computing cluster at the Pawsey Supercomputing Research Centre.” Coinciding with the formal completion of AA0.5, the 10,000th antenna was installed at the SKA-Low site on Inyarrimanha Ilgari Bundara, the CSIRO Murchison Radio-astronomy Observatory. The next construction milestone is AA1, an 18-station array, which is scheduled for 2026. The image above shows the some of the SKA-Low team in front of one of the stations.

We acknowledge the Wajarri Yamaji as the Traditional Owners and Native Title Holders of the observatory site.