INSIGHT
INSIGHTS INTO THE SKA-MAX PLANCK DISH DEMONSTRATOR BY PROF. MICHAEL KRAMER AND DR HANS-RAINER KLÖCKNER (MAX PLANCK INSTITUTE FOR RADIO ASTRONOMY) Following the accession of the prestigious German Max Planck Society (MPG) to the SKA Organisation last year, its president Prof. Martin Stratmann visited the South African SKA site in January 2020, stopping by the MeerKAT telescope and the MPGfunded SKA dish demonstrator to see the Max-Planck-Institut für Radioastronomie investments in the SKA for himself. Here’s how we got to this point, and what lies ahead for the SKA-MPG dish. What does it take to turn the SKA from an idea into reality? Early years of detailed design work in the project not only consisted of paper design; in the SKA Dish consortium, they involved the actual manufacturing of prototype dishes from teams in Canada, China and South Africa. In 2014, building on this work and following the recommendations of a committee of independent experts, the SKA Dish design consortium selected the final design for the SKA dish, jointly developed under the lead of the German company MTM and CETC54 from China.
Following the successful outcome of the Detailed Design Review for the SKA dish in China in November 2016, the two dishes were manufactured. The first one, SKA-P, was inaugurated in February 2018 at the CETC factory plant in Shijiazhuang, China, while SKA-MPG was shipped out to the South African SKA site in the Karoo to be assembled and commissioned in real site conditions.
Location, location, location That decision was made in close partnership with the South African Radio Astronomy Observatory (SARAO) and with the long-term scientific interests of the MPG in mind. Installing the dish on the radioquiet Karoo site would allow the operation of this demonstrator under realistic SKA conditions, providing valuable lessons for the team to learn from.
To give the Dish consortium fresh momentum, in 2015 the Max Planck Society increased their activity by funding a cooperation of the Max-PlanckInstitut für Radioastronomie (MPIfR) and MTM to build a second dish, the so-called SKA-MPG dish demonstrator in addition to a first prototype funded by CETC54. Above: Group photograph in front of the SKA-MPG dish demonstrator with the president of the Max Planck Society, Martin Stratmann during his visit in South Africa (from left to right: Justin Jonas, Dave Horn, Daan Du Toit, Willem Esterhuyse, Rob Adam, Sebastian Hoepfner, Bill Hansson, Martin Stratmann, Michael Kramer, Gundolf Wieching, Lisette Andreae, Sias Malan). Credit: SARAO
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Final Radio Frequency Interference (RFI) qualification tests of the redesigned drive system at the MPIfR test facility in Bonn, conducted by MPIfR and MTM. Credit: C.Leinz/MPIfR
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