SKA-India Technical Activities

India has been an active contributor to the pre-construction phase of the SKA telescopes, participating in three different consortia, including taking a leadership role in the Telescope Manager consortium. Indian scientists from the National Centre for Radio Astrophysics (NCRA) led this consortium, bringing together experts from seven countries to design the Telescope Manager system, which will serve as the controlling nerve center of the entire SKA observatory. Remarkably, this was the first design consortium to complete and submit its final design in mid-2018. In the phase leading up to the construction of the SKA telescopes, Indian contributors have continued to build on these activities through early prototyping efforts.

For the construction phase, India is poised to play a leading role in the production of the Observatory Monitor and Control system, an expanded version of the Telescope Manager with additional features and capabilities. India will also have a significant role in building the digital electronics required for signal processing at the SKA-Low stations and will contribute to the construction of the radio frequency electronics for one of the bands of the SKA-Mid antennas. Furthermore, India is expected to make valuable contributions to certain aspects of scientific data processing, particularly in the detection of pulsars and transients.

In addition to these direct contributions to the SKA project, India will also establish an SKA regional data center within the country. This center will host a significant portion of the data products from the SKA, facilitating easy access to SKA data for the Indian astronomy community.