Editorial

Dear Friends and Colleagues, Welcome to this bumper issue of Contact! The SKAO Comms team have packed a lot into it. You’ll be able to read in detail about what we in the project were calling the C3 – shorthand for the Construction Commencement Ceremonies – which took place on 5 December.

The two events that formed the core of the C3 were at the telescope sites in Australia and South Africa, but we also organised additional events in Cape Town and in Perth to allow more colleagues and partners to take part in the celebrations, as well as an event for our UK-based staff at the SKAO HQ. I was pleased to see that some of our partners institutes also celebrated, as they should!

I was honoured to take part in the C3 in Australia; Dr Catherine Cesarsky, Chair of the SKAO Council, represented the Observatory at the events in South Africa. As you can read, the care and attention, and organisation, that went into the events was highly professional and I give my heartfelt thanks to all the teams at SKAO, CSIRO, SARAO, DISER and DSI who made it happen. The grand conductor was SKAO Director of Communications William Garnier, who, I believe collapsed in a heap afterwards!

A major focus of the C3 was celebrating the work done by all of our partners across the world who have worked so very hard to get us to this place, but also we were acknowledging the local stakeholders, especially the indigenous people, who are graciously allowing us to build the SKA Observatory on their land. We are looking forward to the decades long relationships that will grow as we build and operate one of the world’s largest science facilities.

Contact 12 also highlights some of the new science results emerging from the SKA precursor and pathfinder projects. It is great to see that science is not standing still and waiting for us. You can also read an in-depth interview with André van Es and Ben Lewis, who are the two Senior Project Managers responsible for overseeing the construction activities for SKA-Low and SKA-Mid respectively: they are two very busy people. There are several other interesting articles which I hope you’ll enjoy reading.

The C3 was a great way to end 2022, but there was more. With deliberate timing we arranged the signature of several major construction contracts with different partners for, amongst others, the contracts to deliver the major infrastructure in Australia and South Africa, that to provide the SKA-Mid dishes and the contract to provide the SKA-Low antennas. In all, we have now signed construction contracts worth just under €500m. SKA is happening and 2023 should bring us a lot of exciting developments on various fronts. January was already quite eventful in this respect, with Canada announcing their intention to join the SKAO as a full member. What a great way to start the year!

PROF. PHILIP DIAMOND, SKAO DIRECTOR-GENERAL

SKAO Director-General Prof. Philip Diamond speaking at the SKAO construction commencement ceremony at Inyarrimanha Ilgari Bundara, the CSIRO radio astronomy observatory in Australia, home of the SKA-Low telescope.

Credit: SKAO