https://www.skatelescope.org/news/ska-construction-steams-ahead/

The first Tier 1 contracts were signed within a week of construction approval, thanks to the efforts of the teams upstream. Just under six months after the SKA Observatory Council approved the start of construction of the SKA telescopes, two more contracts have crossed the Director-General’s desk for signature last week (end Dec 2021). This brings the total number of contracts signed so far to 27.

Worth approximately €90 million in total, the contracts have been awarded to all seven current SKAO members, namely Australia, China, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, South Africa, and the United Kingdom. The majority of awards have been for software development.

the SKA Phase 1 Construction Proposal earlier in 2021. This thorough document of 256 pages stipulated the design baseline for the SKA telescopes, the work packages and construction milestones, as well as how member countries would benefit from their investment in the project by way of fair work return.

Building on those years of preparatory work and substantial financial investment in the design of the SKA, countries expressed interest in supplying specific elements in which they had expertise such as the antennas, the supercomputers, the networks, software, etc. This resulted in a model where most contracts would be allocated to specific member countries, while unallocated contracts would be offered to all members.

The result: over 60 “Tier 1” contracts placed by the SKAO. The vast majority are cash where the SKAO is the client, while a few are in-kind, or paid for directly by countries. Below them sit “Tier 2” contracts, placed between Tier 1 contractors and sub-contractors to deliver specific elements of the contract.

To ensure local small and medium enterprises around the telescope sites benefit from work, the SKAO has unbundled some of its larger infrastructure contracts, making them more accessible to local companies. The Observatory was keen to get this right in order to make sure the construction of the SKA telescopes also benefits local communities.

(Engineers take note of the following.)
The SKAO relies on the fourth version of a suite of standard contracts developed over the last 30 years called “New Engineering Contracts”. One advantage of using NEC4 is that the contracts are written in “plain English”, says Ian. The second is that they are process-driven. The contracts are living breathing things with risk registers and early warnings and compensation events,” he says. “The idea behind NEC4 is that you minimise the number of disputes by resolving your issues during the performance of the contract. They are by their nature collaborative contracts.

While no one could have predicted the COVID-19 pandemic, the SKAO was able to quickly adjust its plans ahead of the start of construction to take into account as much as possible the effects of the pandemic. In the context of a global shortage of semiconductors and shipping issues, the SKAO is working to control its own supply chain. As an example, the Observatory is bulk-buying programmable circuit boards it knows it will need to then provide them to contractors as raw material when they’ll need to assemble them. “We’ve managed to overcome several challenges, some risks are clearly beyond our control, like a pandemic”.

2022 will see major infrastructure work being allocated and starting at the two telescope sites. Five big infrastructure contracts – worth together over 100 million euros – are currently open for tenders. Many of these are to ensure that things such as accommodation, power, access roads, emergency airstrips as well as radio and fibre optical communications are in place for the work on site to begin.

By the end of 2022, the Observatory will have awarded approximately 85% of its Tier 1 contracts, and committed more than 500 million euros of construction funding. Just over the horizon, in 2024, the very first array assembly milestone – deploying four dish systems in South Africa and over 1,000 low frequency antennas in Western Australia – will loom, with further milestones beyond. The excitement within the Observatory and its partners is palpable.

The SKA Establishment and delivery plan is at https://www.skatelescope.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/22380_SKA_Est-Delivery-Plan_DIGITAL_v3.pdf

The SKA Phase 1 construction proposal is at https://www.skatelescope.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/22380_Construction-Proposal_DIGITAL_v3.pdf

For NEC Contact 4 see https://www.neccontract.com/products/contracts and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Engineering_Contract

> For NEC Contact 4 see https://www.neccontract.com/products/contracts and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Engineering_Contract

From wikipedia,

The New Engineering Contract (NEC), is a formalised system created by the UK Institution of Civil Engineers that guides the drafting of documents on civil engineering, construction and maintenance projects for the purpose of obtaining tenders, awarding and administering contracts. As such they legally define the responsibilities and duties of Employers (who commission work) and Contractors (who carry out work) in the Works Information. The contract consists of two key parts: the Contract Data part one (Data provided by the Employer) and Contract Data part two (Data provided by the Contractor). Several approaches are included making it a family of options. The NEC contract is widely used in both the UK and Hong Kong.

There have been attempts, largely unsuccessful, at introducing the NEC contract into both Australia and New Zealand from at least 1994. As of 2022 this form of contract remains relatively obscure within both countries.

Do you know of this, Rev?

> The SKA Establishment and delivery plan is at https://www.skatelescope.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/22380_SKA_Est-Delivery-Plan_DIGITAL_v3.pdf

More than anything, this document is about staffing levels and staffing arrangement. SKA headquarters is in the UK. SKA-Low (low frequency observations) is in Australia. SKA-Mid (mid frequency observations) is in South Africa. In the long term, it is envisaged that staffing levels will be similar across all three countries. The document establishes job titles and responsibilities.

6.4.4.2.2 Observing Modes
A number of observing modes will be supported by the SKA to enable the scientific goals of the Observatory and its community to be realised. These observing modes can be differentiated between imaging and non-imaging modes. The observing modes shall be:
• continuum imaging;
• spectral/zoom window imaging;
• pulsar search;
• pulsar timing;
• dynamic spectrum;
• transient search; and
• very-long baseline interferometry (VLBI).
Independently of the observing modes, there are different ways in which the telescope carries out observations, i.e., tracking modes (§6.4.4.2.2.3). Furthermore, there will be special observing modes to allow for a fast reaction to targets of opportunity, triggered events, etc.

Continuum imaging: Designed for imaging areas of the sky over a broad bandwidth. The bandwidth chosen is configurable. Spectral resolutions can be configured from 5.4 kHz for SKA1-LOW and 13.4 kHz for SKA1-MID. A dedicated fast-imaging pipeline will produce snapshot images, at low latency and high time resolution, to search for radio transients.

Spectral line imaging provides between 52,500 and 65,536 linearly spaced channels across the frequency band.

VLBI: This mode provides independently steerable tied-array beams to participate in VLBI imaging and non-imaging observations, with other radio astronomy observatories located around the globe.

Wide Area Scanning: This mode is for observing large areas of the sky with shallow integrations. This mode will be used when the overheads of using other observing modes to obtain a large map are significant.

Drift Scanning: In this mode, the antennas/stations in a subarray do not track the sky but are fixed relative to the Earth, i.e., they point to a fixed position while the sky moves across the beam at the sidereal rate.

A project may have override status due to its importance and urgency, e.g., a supernova explosion in a nearby galaxy.

It is possible to operate the SKA1 array as a single element (i.e., a virtual single dish) rather than as an interferometer. The full array or any subarray can operate as a single element through the coherent summation of signals from the individual antennas or stations in the array/subarray. As a result, one or more (up to 500 for SKA1-LOW and 1500 for SKA1-MID) tied-array beams can be produced from the same or different subarrays, each with independent pointings on the sky, and configured and operated independently of each other.

mollwollfumble said:

> For NEC Contact 4 see https://www.neccontract.com/products/contracts and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Engineering_Contract

From wikipedia,

The New Engineering Contract (NEC), is a formalised system created by the UK Institution of Civil Engineers that guides the drafting of documents on civil engineering, construction and maintenance projects for the purpose of obtaining tenders, awarding and administering contracts. As such they legally define the responsibilities and duties of Employers (who commission work) and Contractors (who carry out work) in the Works Information. The contract consists of two key parts: the Contract Data part one (Data provided by the Employer) and Contract Data part two (Data provided by the Contractor). Several approaches are included making it a family of options. The NEC contract is widely used in both the UK and Hong Kong.

There have been attempts, largely unsuccessful, at introducing the NEC contract into both Australia and New Zealand from at least 1994. As of 2022 this form of contract remains relatively obscure within both countries.

Do you know of this, Rev?

Yes, I am a member of the ice so I see these things quite regularly, but I haven’t seen any evidence that it works particularly well, and quite a lot to the contrary.

The Rev Dodgson said:

mollwollfumble said:

> For NEC Contact 4 see https://www.neccontract.com/products/contracts and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Engineering_Contract

From wikipedia,

The New Engineering Contract (NEC), is a formalised system created by the UK Institution of Civil Engineers that guides the drafting of documents on civil engineering, construction and maintenance projects for the purpose of obtaining tenders, awarding and administering contracts. As such they legally define the responsibilities and duties of Employers (who commission work) and Contractors (who carry out work) in the Works Information. The contract consists of two key parts: the Contract Data part one (Data provided by the Employer) and Contract Data part two (Data provided by the Contractor). Several approaches are included making it a family of options. The NEC contract is widely used in both the UK and Hong Kong.

There have been attempts, largely unsuccessful, at introducing the NEC contract into both Australia and New Zealand from at least 1994. As of 2022 this form of contract remains relatively obscure within both countries.

Do you know of this, Rev?

Yes, I am a member of the ice so I see these things quite regularly, but I haven’t seen any evidence that it works particularly well, and quite a lot to the contrary.

So why hasn’t it been implemented?

sibeen said:

The Rev Dodgson said:

mollwollfumble said:

> For NEC Contact 4 see https://www.neccontract.com/products/contracts and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Engineering_Contract

From wikipedia,

The New Engineering Contract (NEC), is a formalised system created by the UK Institution of Civil Engineers that guides the drafting of documents on civil engineering, construction and maintenance projects for the purpose of obtaining tenders, awarding and administering contracts. As such they legally define the responsibilities and duties of Employers (who commission work) and Contractors (who carry out work) in the Works Information. The contract consists of two key parts: the Contract Data part one (Data provided by the Employer) and Contract Data part two (Data provided by the Contractor). Several approaches are included making it a family of options. The NEC contract is widely used in both the UK and Hong Kong.

There have been attempts, largely unsuccessful, at introducing the NEC contract into both Australia and New Zealand from at least 1994. As of 2022 this form of contract remains relatively obscure within both countries.

Do you know of this, Rev?

Yes, I am a member of the ice so I see these things quite regularly, but I haven’t seen any evidence that it works particularly well, and quite a lot to the contrary.

So why hasn’t it been implemented?

?

It has been implemented in the country it was written for.

The Rev Dodgson said:

sibeen said:

The Rev Dodgson said:

Yes, I am a member of the ice so I see these things quite regularly, but I haven’t seen any evidence that it works particularly well, and quite a lot to the contrary.

So why hasn’t it been implemented?

?

It has been implemented in the country it was written for.

No, no, why hasn’t is been implemented in Australia? Surely if it was going to make things difficult ICE would have been all over it.

sibeen said:

The Rev Dodgson said:

sibeen said:

So why hasn’t it been implemented?

?

It has been implemented in the country it was written for.

No, no, why hasn’t is been implemented in Australia? Surely if it was going to make things difficult ICE would have been all over it.

The current Australian contracts do a perfectly good job of making things difficult, thanks very much.

The Rev Dodgson said:

sibeen said:

The Rev Dodgson said:

?

It has been implemented in the country it was written for.

No, no, why hasn’t is been implemented in Australia? Surely if it was going to make things difficult ICE would have been all over it.

The current Australian contracts do a perfectly good job of making things difficult, thanks very much.

LOL. Thanks for the reply.

I occasionally see codes of practice from Britain that aren’t as good as what we already have in Australia. I have yet to see any codes of practice from Britain that are better than what we have in Australia.

> The SKA Establishment and delivery plan is at https://www.skatelescope.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/22380_SKA_Est-Delivery-Plan_DIGITAL_v3.pdf

More than anything, this document is an invention of new red tape. You can’t observe on the SKA unless you jump through these hoops. Your observation has to fall into one of these categories. You have to have a person with a specific job title and responsibilities. You have to have a certain number of staff at a specific location in eight years time.

> The SKA Phase 1 construction proposal is at https://www.skatelescope.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/22380_Construction-Proposal_DIGITAL_v3.pdf

This document is well worth a read, but has very little to do with “construction”.

It begins with the science that the SKA hopes to achieve.
Next is a summary of other big science projects around the world, the LHC at CERN, the FAST in China, etc. and their social implications.
How good they are at aboriginal consultations and archaeology discovery in Australia.
Photos of the computing boards to be used at the two sites.
Other brief technical issues such as calibration to correct for dispersion and lag in the fibre optic cables.
Photos of what the antennas look like.
The three-armed spiral antenna layouts in the final plan, and land ownership.
It touches briefly on road and fibre optic cable layouts.
And touches briefly on staffing needs.

Power supply in Australia from hybrid solar + diesel.

The SKA site in South Africa.

New and existing roads in Western Australia.

The SKA antenna in Australia.

mollwollfumble said:

> The SKA Phase 1 construction proposal is at https://www.skatelescope.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/22380_Construction-Proposal_DIGITAL_v3.pdf

This document is well worth a read, but has very little to do with “construction”.

…

The SKA site in South Africa.

…

The SKA antenna in Australia.

Continued

> The SKA Phase 1 construction proposal is at https://www.skatelescope.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/22380_Construction-Proposal_DIGITAL_v3.pdf

Predicted sensitivity of the SKA, better than existing radio arrays. Note that “sensitivity” is only half of the story, the other half is “resolution”.

Environmental protection in Australia will be controlled by these two acts.