Square Kilometre Array Prototype 'Scope Achieves First Light
Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:
Known as SKAMPI, the [tele]'scope was designed by a team whose members hailed from ten nations and built in China. The model tested last week was assembled in 2018 in the Karoo region of South Africa, which will host some of the SKA's thousands of 'scopes.
Tests commenced in 2019, and the SKA org last week explained that technical commissioning work such as "system evaluation, radio frequency interference testing and performance testing took place until early 2022."
That effort helped the SKA team to create system design qualification documentation. SKA boffins have since worked to enable robotic operations of the instrument, and Docker-based software tools to make that possible.
"We have performed first-light observations with SKAMPI in the S-band at frequencies between 1.75 and 3.5GHz, demonstrating the telescope's spectral and pulsar capabilities with imaging of the radio emission of the Southern Sky and detection of the Vela pulsar," reported SKAMPI project scientist Hans-Rainer Klockner of the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy (MPIfR).
[...] While SKAMPI has been a success, much remains to be done. Work on this 'scope will inform development of the 197-dish SKA-Mid telescope - currently under construction in South Africa.
The project will also see the SKA-Low facility built in Australia, which will house 131,072 log-periodic antennas spread across 512 sites.
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