Square Kilometre Array (SKA) Station

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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 Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder (ASKAP).

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 ASKAP site from unacceptable levels of RF interference.

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For more detailed information see:

http://www.sciencewa.net.au/science_news.asp?pg=21&NID=1025 http://www.sciencewa.net.au:80/science_news.asp?pg=21&NID=1107

and the 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 Pathfinder (ASKAP) as a test-bed for the international SKA.

ASKAP 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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