Article Posted on : - Mar 16, 2011

MANCHESTER, UNITED KINGDOM (BNS): BAE Systems has signed a two-year Statement of Mutual Interest (SoMI) to support the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) - the world's largest ever radio telescope network.

The SKA is a €1.5 billion multinational science project which amongst many other research projects, will collect data released by gas clouds after the Big Bang, giving vital clues as to how the universe was formed and whether there might be life on other planets.

BAE Systems’ UK engineers based in Cowes on the Isle of Wight and Chelmsford, Essex are lending their project management skills to the SKA Program Development Office, (SPDO) currently based at the University of Manchester, to help plan the building of the SKA.

In return BAE Systems’ engineers will gain insights into complex research that is pioneering new radio signal processing techniques required to handle data rates that far exceed anything seen to date.

The SKA, which is expected to be fully operational by 2024, will seek to answer fundamental questions in physics and astrophysics. It will consist of thousands of radio telescope dishes and other antennas linked together across an area the size of a continent.

The signals from all the radio wave receptors will be combined to create a giant virtual radio telescope larger than any other radio observatory built to date and 50 times more sensitive.

Amongst its functions, the SKA will be able to collect radio waves carrying signals from gas clouds emitted before the formation of the first stars – enabling it to look back billions of years to reveal how the universe formed immediately after the Big Bang. It will investigate the possibility of life on far off planets, and will even test Einstein’s theory of general relativity.

A team of international astronomers will decide the host site for the SKA next year. This will be followed by a construction planning phase, with execution commencing in 2016.

In addition to producing groundbreaking science research on the foundations of the universe, the SKA will drive innovation in several technological fields, including information and communication technologies (ICT), wireless communication, sensor technology, and renewable energy, BAE Systems said.