SKAO releases 2023 Annual Report

News
on 14 October 2024
The SKA Observatory’s 2023 Annual Report is now available, chronicling a year that saw substantial progress across the Observatory, including the deployment of the first infrastructure for the two SKA telescopes in South Africa and Australia.

The report can be read and downloaded on Issuu here 

The publication highlights many major developments that took place in 2023, including the Observatory’s growing membership, assembly of the first SKA-Mid dish in China, followed by the shipment of the first dish to South Africa, and the “first light” of the final SKA-Low technology demonstrator, Aperture Array Verification System 3 (AVVS3).  

With infrastructure work ongoing and construction of the telescopes then just around the corner, a total of 25 construction contracts were awarded across the SKAO’s member states for components and systems, amounting to €213.9m. 

“The vast majority of our construction related contracts have been placed and across the world there is a vibrant community of industry, institutes and teams active across the range of work packages,” said SKAO Director-General Prof. Philip Diamond. 

It was a year that saw Spain join the SKAO as the ninth member state, with both Canada and Germany confirming their intentions to seek membership as well. 

The SKAO also strengthened ties with other scientific organisations, from collaborating with the US National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO) on a joint SKA-ngVLA science meeting, to signing a collaboration agreement to enhance our capabilities and resources with the European Southern Observatory (ESO), the only other international organisation dedicated to ground-based astronomy.  

The front cover of the SKAO 2023 annual report. The picture shows the SKAO logo in front of a misty morning with a telescope dish in the background.
The SKAO Annual Report 2023

The workforce of the Observatory grew significantly in the three host countries – Australia, South Africa and the UK – including a significant number recruited and employed as collaboration staff in the two telescope host countries by the SKAO’s collaboration partners SARAO and CSIRO.  

Science preparations continued at pace too, with the launch of the third SKAO Science Data Challenge, focused on one of the Observatory’s key science goals: detecting the Epoch of Reionisation. Thirty-three teams from all over the world participated to interpret the 7.5 terabytes of simulated SKA data. 

Summing up the year, SKAO Council Chair Dr Catherine Cesarsky said: “This remarkable progress is a demonstration of the commitment of many people who contributed their hard work, dedication and focus to operational and strategic achievements throughout 2023.” 

If you can't access the Issuu platform, you can download the annual report PDF here.