The Company is pleased to announce an important milestone in McConnell Dowell (Aust) Pty Ltd’s involvement in the Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder (or ASKAP) radio telescope project.

Leaving from Lonsdale, South Australia and beginning tomorrow, thirteen trucks will each carry a 15 metre hi-tech steel module to outback Western Australia.

The modules will make up the control building of CSIRO’s ASKAP. ASKAP is currently being built at the Murchison Radio-astronomy Observatory in remote Western Australia, and once built will help CSIRO and astronomers from around the world answer fundamental questions about our Universe.

The development of the specialised control building, involving a collaborative process between CSIRO, Aurecon, McConnell Dowell and local business Robin Johnson Engineering (RJE) has seen each organisation bring to the table their specialist capabilities to a highly technical job. Once on site, these modules will be assembled by McConnell Dowell.

The control building, designed to stringent requirements, will be thermally efficient, and will protect the telescope from radio interference (RFI) that could be generated from the complex computing systems that will be housed within.

CSIRO ASKAP Project Director, Antony Schinckel noted, “Aurecon, RJE and McConnell Dowell have done an excellent job of understanding the difficult task associated with developing such a building.”

“The transport of the first modules of the ASKAP Control Building from the RJE manufacturing facility represents a significant milestone in the development of ASKAP.”

“We look forward to the modules arriving at the site and their assembly over the coming months.”

Schinckel continued, “It is clear that these companies are fully conversant with the development of specialised buildings in remote Australian sites and we welcome their expertise.”

ASKAP, a next generation radio telescope will consist of 36 identical antennas. It will have 20 times the survey speed and ten times the sensitivity of current radio telescopes and will have the ability to detect hundreds of times more galaxies than current instruments. It will help cast light on fundamental physics and processes at work in the Universe.

ENDS

For further information, please contact:

Tony Crawshaw
Communication Manager
CSIRO Astronomy and Space Science
T: (02) 9372 4528  F: (02) 9372 4310 M: 0402 770 403
E:  This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it   W: www.csiro.au