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After years of research, months of planning and weeks of waiting, the decision finally went our way.

The much-anticipated Square Kilometre Array - the world's most powerful radio telescope - will be built in the Murchison region of WA ... and in South Africa.

The SKA Organisation board of directors has shared the world's biggest science project between the two best sites.

Nearly three years ago, the International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research (ICRAR), a joint venture between UWA and Curtin University, was launched, with the headquarters based on our Crawley campus. It started with $20 million from the State Government of WA to grow new skills and develop new capabilities to give WA the best chance of hosting the SKA. ICRAR is now a Centre with funding of around $130 million and has grown quickly in the past three years to 70 staff and 35 graduate students.

As deadlines came and went earlier this year, it looked increasingly as though a compromise would be reached. But ICRAR director, UWA Professor Peter Quinn, says the final decision plays to the strengths of both sites, as well as utilising the existing investment by both teams.

"The low and middle frequency components to be deployed at the Murchison Radioastronomy Observatory (MRO) in the first phase of the SKA will concentrate on the survey science aspects of the SKA mission," he said.

"The MRO is a fantastic site for low and middle frequencies due to the lack of FM radio and mobile phone interference. The Republic of South Africa site will focus on the high frequency mission of the SKA, which will benefit from the attributes of that site.

"ICRAR is at the right place at the right time to benefit from this announcement. We have exactly the skills and capacities to begin contribution to both the SKA technologies to be placed in WA through our involvement in information and communication technology, international low frequency aperture array technology research and the Murchison Widefield Array project."

As the final decision drew closer, ICRAR staff and supporters were gathered at their UWA base on the night of Friday 25 May. With them were some of the ICRAR Board members, Dr Bernard Bowen, Professor Alistar Robertson, Phillip Jenkins and Graham McHarrie, as well as a team from the State Department of Commerce, including the Minister for Science, John Day.

"We heard the announcement from the Netherlands about 8pm," said Dr Renu Sharma, general manager of ICRAR . "

Peter (Quinn) opened a bottle of champagne and we all celebrated. It was very exciting, after such a lot of hard work by everybody."

Professor Quinn said the dual site decision had been taken after the SKA Organisation looked at the best options and ensured that a dual site was scientifically possible.

"One of the big benefits is that both sites will be able to use and build on our existing infrastructure," he said. "Big investments have been made in the lead-up to the SKA site decision. Australia has invested more than $400 million already."

The new plan to share the SKA will see Australia's Mid-West hosting two key components of the telescope - a group of dishes equipped with Australian-designed multi-pixel radio cameras and the ‘Aperture Array' portion, made up of innovative, non-moving antennae designed to collect lower frequency radio waves from the whole sky.

"This part of the SKA will be optimised to survey large portions of the sky quickly, a particular strength of Australian astronomy," said UWA Professor Lister Staveley-Smith, Deputy Director of ICRAR.

South Africa will host a complementary group of dish-shaped telescopes designed to observe smaller sections of the sky in more detail, following up on regions of interest discovered using the survey portion.

"This model for splitting the SKA closely follows the workings of other observatories around the world; often separate instruments will survey the sky and inform where another telescope should look closer," Professor Quinn said.

"These global science endeavours will continue to benefit Western Australia and the international scientific community long into the future. The effort Australia and WA has made in infrastructure, legislation and policies will make the Murchison Radio-astronomy Observatory a significant centre for global science for decades to come," he said.

"As an International centre, we're eager to continue our work with colleagues in Africa and the rest of the world to build the SKA and use it to explore the Universe in 10,000 times more detail than ever before."

The SKA is a project for future generations. Completion is planned for 2024.

Published in UWA News , 11June 2012