Square Kilometre Array (SKA) Station

The proposed SKA site has been relocated westwards to Boolardy Station from the original choice of Mileura Station to ensure separation from the radio-frequency (RF) interference of planned mining activities in the region. It SKA station will be known as the Murchison Radio Observatory.

The antenna configuration proposed will span Australia with “… a 5-arm symmetric log-spiral arrangement … out to a distance of 350 km from the core…“. The eastern spiral arm baseline will being extended even further to New Zealand for a longer baseline.

The State Government will work with the Commonwealth to develop legislation to protect the SKA site from unacceptable levels of RF interference.

For more detailed information see:

http://www.sciencewa.net.au/science_news.asp?pg=21&NID=1025

Australian canditate site: http://www.atnf.csiro.au/projects/ska/mileura.html

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!! NEWS FLASH !!

Hopes of Australia hosting the international SKA were raised when the Commonwealth Government announced a $56.6 million investment for the Australian Square Kilometre Array (ASKA) as a test-bed for the international SKA.

The ASKA, named the Pathfinder Telescope, will be built by 2012 at Boolardy Station. It will consist of “… up to 45 parabolic dishes equipped with phased array receivers and a low-frequency array of 512 antenna tiles. A remote array station in NSW will be linked to the WA core using fibre-optic infrastructure.” The Australian, Tuesday May 15, 2007

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