Документ взят из кэша поисковой машины. Адрес оригинального документа : http://www.atnf.csiro.au/nca/WG3.2%20report.pdf Дата изменения: Tue Sep 20 07:47:43 2005 Дата индексирования: Mon Oct 1 20:56:00 2012 Кодировка: Поисковые слова: optical telescope

National Facilities
A report to the National Committee for Astronomy for the Australian Astronomy Decadal Plan 2006-2015 By Working Group 3.2

September 2005
Executive Summary
Australia's national facilities for observational astronomy are the Anglo-Australian Observatory (AAO) and the Australia Telescope National Facility (ATNF). In the period covered by this Decadal Plan the United Kingdom will substantially reduce its contribution to the operations budget of the AAO. In consequence, a major issue for this WG to consider is the future funding of the AAO. In addition to the AAO and ATNF, several Australian universities operate observing facilities that have a significant role at a national level: either by offering observing time to outside users or by providing infrastructure as in the case of the ANU's Siding Spring Observatory (SSO). Rather than duplicate the detailed discussions of these facilities, the three Facilities WG chairs agreed to assign facilities like SSO into one or the other WGs: this was for practical reasons and does not imply any judgement about the status of the respective university facilities. Our discussions at this stage of the Decadal Plan process were independent of the scientific priorities from the science WGs, so are based mainly on strategic issues informed by the submissions we received and our own experience as users (and senior staff) of national facilities. The lack of a detailed science case at this stage of the process makes it hard to assign relative ranks to all the facilities discussed. However we have identified the top and bottom items: · In all our discussions there was unqualified support for the AAO and ATNF as our two national facilities. This is further supported by the publication impact analysis submitted by WG3.1. We therefore give them top priority for continued full support, notably extra support for the AAO in the context of diminished UK funding. To quote the report of the optical sub-group at the second public meeting: "It is absolutely vital that the AAO as an institution be kept running, in order to retain the people, intellectual property, and instrument R&D/construction capability."

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We are very aware that we must be willing to consider closing some facilities if we are to obtain funding for new ones. To this end we have identified facilities that may not be needed in the second half of the decade and list them at a lower priority. The ICT resources, although essential, are small and most likely to be funded elsewhere, so we have also placed them at a low priority.

The WG noted very strong support for the continued operation of the ANU Siding Spring Observatory to provide the infrastructure for Skymapper and smaller telescopes on a national level. This needs additional funding (perhaps by a new mechanism), as do many of the Australian university facilities. Facilities like SSO and new proposals such as PILOT, when combined with international facilities, will cost more than we can realistically hope to raise, so further decisions about these are necessary which will be guided by the science priorities. The following list describes the specific facilities we discussed and supported. More detailed descriptions of the facilities are given in the following pages. This includes a description of the national support for theoretical astrophysics. Whilst this was not listed as a specific facility for support, we encourage the development of plans that allow for the support of theoretical astrophysics within all the national facilities.

National Facilities
· The Anglo-Australian Observatory, funded at the level described below, and including support for our 8m and ELT development. Cost: nominally $5.7M per year although some increase will be required to provide support for the 8m and ELT projects. The Australia Telescope National Facility and the currently planned xNTD. The total support for all of ATNF is $18M per year. (SKA pathfinder development work we consider an international project.)

·

University Facilities
· · The Siding Spring Observatory site (run by ANU) to provide vital infrastructure to our optical telescopes. Cost: $4M (including 2.3m) or $3M (without 2.3m) per year, not including recoveries. The ANU Skymapper Telescope. Cost included in SSO above.

Proposed New National Facilities
· · The extended version of xNTD beyond what is currently funded. PILOT (about $12M to build, then $2M/year operations. With international partners, Australia may only need to pay half of this.)

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National Facilities for the Next 5 Years
· · The ANU 2.3m Telescope. Cost included in SSO above. The Australia Telescope National Facility's Mopra telescope.

National Facilities funded outside Astronomy
· Advanced ICT resources, including the Australian Virtual Observatory; access to state-of-the-art super-computers and storage from APAC; and access to national broadband (10 ­ 100Gbps) networks, notably the fast link to SSO.

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Facilities
1. Anglo-Australian Observatory
1.1 Funding and Background
The Anglo-Australian Observ atory (AAO) is jointly funded by the Australian and British govern ments through DEST and PPARC respectively. In 1969 the Australian and British governments decided to establish and op erate a large optical telescope in Australia for use by Australian and British astronomers. The Anglo-Australian Telescop e Agreement Act 1970 gave effect to this decision. The Act established the Anglo-Australian Teles cope Board (AATB), a body corporate, which o wns and operates the tel escope. The AngloAustralian Telescope (AAT) was op ened in 1974. In 1988, the operation of another teles cope on Siding Spring Mountain, the UK Schmidt Telescope (UKST), was transferred to the AATB. These t wo telescop es, together with the Marsfield headquarters facility and instrumentation laboratory, collectively form the Anglo-Australian Observatory. Further information can be found on the AAO website (http://www.aao.gov .au/) and in it s Annual Reports (http://www.aao .gov.au/annual/).

1.2 Role of the Facility
The mission of the Anglo-Australian Observ atory (AAO) is to provide wo rld-class optical and infrared observing facilities that enable Australian and British astronomers to carry out excellent science. The AAO is a world leader in astronomical research and in the develop ment of innovative telescope instrumentation. It also takes a leading role in the fo rmulation of long-term plans for astrono my in Australia. The AAO h as been a major contributor to Australian an d British astronomical res earch for the past thirty years. Each semester the AAO telescopes ty pically provide observing time to bet ween 50 and 60 observing p rograms involving between 150 and 250 astronomers (on average 40 % Australian, 40 % British and 20 % other). Time on the AAT is typically oversubscribed by a factor of bet ween 2 and 2.5 . Each y ear about 140 pap ers are produced using observations with the AAT or UKST. Of the 318 astronomers or students currently located at Australian institutions, 114 (36%) have used the AAO telescopes in the past 5 years. A review in 2000 by the Eu ropean Southern Observ atory sho wed that of the eight 4-metre class telescopes in the world, the AAT had the highest publication rate. Many o f the papers based on AAT o r UKST dat a are highly cited in the scientific literature. Of the 300 most-cited papers produced by the international astronomical co mmunity over the last three years (the top 0.5 % of all pap ers), 17 made use o f AAO telescopes .

1.3 High Profile Work Done by the Facility
The 2dF Galaxy Redshift Survey, a map of 221,000 gal axies, measured the amounts of dark matter, baryons and neutrinos in the universe, and is on e of the fundamental contributions to the standard mod el for the ag e, structure and constituents of the universe. Th e follo w-up 2 SLAQ survey is using the 2dF and AAOmega instruments on t he AAT to look at galaxies and QSOs at high redshift detected by the Sloan Digital Sky Survey in order to p robe the evolution of largescale structure.

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The RAVE project is using the 6dF instrument on the UKST, and aims to measure the orbits for a million stars in the Milky Way over the next 5 y ears , in order to find out ho w, and wh en, our galaxy was formed. The Anglo-Australian Plan et Search (AAPS) has discovered 20 planets around other stars and revealed the existence of worlds unlike any in the Solar System. As the AAPS time baseline increases ov er the next several y ears, the range of det ectable planet types and the sample o f stars searched will both be extend ed. Other high-impact research fro m the past few years that resulted from the AAO telescopes includes (1) the discovery of a new type of g alaxy, the first in more than 70 y ears , (2) the use of stellar seismology to probe the interiors of stars, (3) the discovery of some of the most distant objects in the universe, (4) the identification of massive gamma-ray bursts with exploding stars and (5) the discovery of a satellite galaxy being torn ap art by the Milky Way.

1.4 Immediate Future of Facility
The AAT Ag reement and the n ew Supplementary Agreement p rovide for the continuation of the bi-national partnership until 30 June 2010. Ov er this ti me frame the AAO will continue to provide observing facilities to Australian and British astronomers. Ho wev er the UK will halve its funding contribution in 2006 ­ 7 and ag ain in 2007 ­ 8 . The British share of ti me will be redu ced pro -rata, and the Australian share will increase fro m 50 % in semester 06 A to ~67 % in 06B and 07 A, and then to ~80 % fro m 07 B to 10 A. Contributions to the AAO's Joint Program over and abov e the recurrent contributions may v ary thes e expected shares. Recent and ongoing streamlining of the AAO operations will permit the current level of telesco pe support to be maintained throughout this period despite the redu ction in recu rrent funding by the UK. The AAO's instrumentation program will also need to be funded largely fro m external income in the form of instrument contracts (e.g., WFMOS for Gemini) and comp etitive grants. (Although UK recu rrent funding will be reduced, the AAO is no w eligible for PPARC g rants. The AAO is not eligible for ARC grants.) Scientifically, the AAO h as much to look forward to. The current instrument complement (2dF, IRIS2, UCLES/UHRF, WFI) is very broadly capable. This capacity will be significantly extend ed with the advent of the AAOmeg a spectrog raph, which will be the most powerful surv ey spectrograph in the world from the time it co mes on-lin e in semester 06 A until WFMOS is built. The larger fraction of time available to Australian astro nomers will en able larg er, more ambitious projects to be undertaken with any of the AAT's instruments.

1.5 Future Vision of Facility
The vision for the future o f the AAO is captured in the following recommendations: 1. The AAO sho uld be the national organization that supports optical/infrared astronomy facilities. The AAO (as the Anglo-Australian Observ atory up to 2 010 and as Astronomical Observ atory" thereafter) should not only operate the be the support org anization for Gemini and manag e Au stralia's inv new optical/infrared facilities (e.g. an ELT, an Antarctic telescope, all of Australia's major the "Australian AAT and UKST, but also olvement in other major etc.).

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2. The AAT is an essential facility for Australian astronomers througho ut the decade 2006 ­ 2015, with at least one major new instrument required to maintain its scientific competitiveness. Australia n eeds not only to maintain the AAT under the Supplementary Ag reement for the first five years of the d ecade (2006 ­ 2010), but also take sole responsibility for the teles cope after the end o f the Agreement (2010 ­ 2015) and ensure that it has suitable instrumentation. 3. A major new optical/infrared facility is required around the end of the decade. At the appropriate time, the AAO would transfer its resources from s upporting AAT op eration to supporting operation of this new fa cility. Australia should be ai ming to obtain access to an ELT, Antarctic 8 m, or equivalent major new optical/infrared facility by around 2015. The AAO , in its role as national optical/infrared observatory, would re-direct the op erations cost of the AAT to operating/supporting this new facility. This may mean operating the AAT in full-cost-recovery mod e, converting it to other purposes, or closing it down . A plan for a graceful trans ition is required. 4. The AAO i nstrumentation program as a national asset. The AAO should remain a source of access to the best instruments on the instrumentation program and should is a world leader and should be retained and developed innovative technology that gives Australian astronomers b est telescopes. Australia benefits fro m the AAO's be prep ared to invest in it at its current level o r better.

2 The Australia Telescope National Facility
2.1 Funding and Background
The Australia Tel escope National Facility (ATNF) receives approximately 70% o f its funding by direct appropriation from CSIRO and 30 % from external sources. The ATNF became a National Facility in 1990 for operation by CSIRO. The Australia Telescope consists of eight radio-receiving antennas: the six 22 m antennas of the Australia Telescope Compact Array (ATCA), the 22 m Mopra telescope an d the 64 m Park es Telescop e. The ATCA has receiver systems cov ering frequencies fro m 1.2 to 1 06 GHz and a maximu m baseline length of 6 k m. The Parkes Telescope h as receivers operating fro m 440 MHz to 22 GHz. The ATNF's mission is to operate and dev elop the Aus tralia Telescope as a national research facility for use by Australian and international research ers, to exploit the telescope's unique southern location and technological advantages to main tain its position as a world-class radio astronomy observatory , and to further the advancement of kno wledge. The ATNF is the largest single astronomical institution in Australia; approximately 90% of the Australian radio astrono my is carried out through the ATNF. In the wo rld context, the Australia Telescop e is one of the world's most po werful radio astronomy facilities and is the only major radio telescope in the southern hemisphere.

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2.2 Role of the Facility
ATNF Usage: Th e ATNF is operated as a national faci lity with time g ranted by the Time Allocation Co mmittee on the basis of s cientific merit. In general the time requested fo r the ATCA and Parkes exceeds the time av ailable by about a factor of t wo. Typically 40 % of s cheduled time on the ATCA and Parkes is allocated to proposals with Principal Investigators (PIs) fro m overseas institutions. Th e other 60 % of scheduled ti me is allocated to p roposals with PIs at the ATNF and other Australian institutions. Publications: On the b asis of the number of refereed articles published with ATNF data each year, ATNF is the s econd most prolific radio facility in the world. The nu mber of publications per year using AT data h as been slowly increasing over the past 10 y ears , with about 120 refereed papers published in 2004. The ratio of papers published using data fro m the VLBA, Parkes and the Co mpact Array is approximately 1:4:7. Student Training: ATNF supports an active program o f student supervision. In 2004 there were 33 Ph D students co-supervised by ATNF staff. The ATNF also o ffers , through CSIRO, on average t wo top-up scholarships to exceptional students pursuing ATNF-affiliated Ph Ds.

2.3 High Profile Work Done by the Facility
Science Programs: The ATNF has a long history of major scientific achievements. So me high impact projects recently carried out using the ATNF facilities include: · The Parkes Multibeam Pulsar Su rvey · The HI Parkes All-Sky Surv ey (HIPASS) · The ATCA Su rveys of the Magellanic Clouds · The Southern Galactic Plan e Other high-impact research fro m the past few years incl udes: · The first double pulsar · Carbon monoxide in High-Redshift Galaxies · A new spiral arm for the Milky Way · Dens e molecular gas heated in starbu rst galaxies · Discovery of a super-massive spiral galaxy Technology and Instrumentation: The ATNF h as a very strong instrumentation group, specialising in the design and construction of radiofreq uency receivers and high speed digital signal processing. The ATNF pioneered the use of cm-wav e multibeam receivers for radioastronomy with the 13 -beam 21cm receiver on the Parkes telescop e. Th e dev elopment o f the recently co mpleted 12/3.5 mm systems for the Co mpact Array has included novel designs and fabrication techniques for micro wave polari zers, 3-mm feed horns , and amplifiers both for the first stage and for LO generation and frequ ency conv ersion. New generations of radioastronomy instrumentation are increasingly being developed with the FPGA (Field Programmable Gate Arrays) and MMIC (Micro wav e Monolithic Integrated Circuit) technologies. ATNF is leading the MMIC technology field with a variety of applications on the ATCA.

2.4 Immediate Future of the Facility
The ATNF will continue to schedule its telescopes in t wo six-month terms per year, starting in April and October. Major observing programs expected to use ATNF teles copes over the coming years include the ATCA 20 GHz survey , the Lo cal Volu me HI surv ey (LVHIS), the Galactic AllSky Surv ey (GASS) at 21cm and the pulsar ti ming array observations at Parkes . Current d evelopment projects and upgrades planned fo r the immediate future will enhance the technical capabilities of all ATNF instruments. Upgrad es presently underway fo r the ATCA include the increase o f the signal p rocessing band width fro m 128 MHz to 2 GHz, and n ew

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receivers for the 7 mm band (26-50 GHz). Planned upgrades for Parkes are a new digital filter bank with 1GHz b and width, 1024 chann els, and synchronous pulsar integration with up to 1024 bins per period, and a 7-b eam receiver to operate in the 6.0 ­ 6.7 GHz band. Th e Long Baseline Array will receive a major upgrad e in the form of gigab it links between the sites to allo w for realtime correlation.

2.5 Future Vision of the Facility
Over the next decade the ATNF hopes to position itself to be a major p artner in, and possibly host, the next gen eration international radio telescope, t he Square Kilo metre Array (SKA). To that end the ATNF is involved in engineering dev elopment projects to develop SKA technology. By early next d ecad e, the ATNF ­ together with Australian and international partners ­ aims to have built and to be operating a major "pathfinder" instrument for the SKA. As part of this process the ATNF is wo rking to develop infrastructure at the proposed Australian site for the SKA at Mileura, Western Australia by building a t elescope operating at 0.7 ­ 2.4 GHz with 5000 m2 of collecting area. The ATNF also hopes to l ead development of an SKA p athfinder instrument to carry out the science that will lead us to t he SKA. Si multaneously, the ATNF will continue to enhance its position as a world-class radio astronomy observatory through on-going developments for the ATCA and Park es.

3 Australian National University: Siding Spring Observatory
3.1 Funding and Background
The Siding Sp ring Observatory (SSO) is funded by the Australian National University. The 40inch, 24-inch and 16-inch reflectors at SSO were acquired during the 1960s. The 2 .3 m teles cope, constructed in-house by ANU, b egan operation at SSO in 1984. The astronomy research institute at ANU, which operates SSO, h as ch anged name s everal times since 1956. It is no w known as the Research School o f Astronomy and Astro physics (RSAA), and as such is p art of the Institute for Advanced Studies at the ANU.

3.2 Role of the Facility
The RSAA itself is funded as a university research sch ool, through the ANU, and through competitive national funding and external contracts. It receives no funding specifically for the operation or maintenance of its telescopes. As such, ANU telescopes constitute a university facility, rather than a national facility, although they are available for use in open comp etition to all Australian and overseas astronomers. Du e to the nat ure and extent of primary funding source for ANU telescopes, the d egree of observer and instru mentation support cannot n ecessarily match that of the National Facilities. Nev ertheless, the t wo major RSAA research telescopes enjoy a wide range of users. St atistics on telescope usage of the 40-inch and 2.3 m at SSO by RSAA and non-RSAA astronomers fo r the y ears 2001 ­ 2003 sho w that fewer than 25 % o f applications are the result of RSAA-only programs. RSAA is also active in instrument building, with t wo current contracts for major multi-million dollar Gemini instruments (the NIFS spectro meter and the GSAOI ad aptive optics imager), other smaller external contracts, and so me l arge internal instrument projects (the SkyMapper telescope and the Wi FeS spectro meter for the 2 .3 m telescop e).

3.3 High Profile Work Done by the Facility
Recent high profile wo rk includes the discovery of the accelerating universe, the MACHO, RAVE, 2dFGRS and HIPASS projects, discovery of the most metal-poor stars, the chemi cal abundance o f the sun , and models for starburst galaxies .

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3.4 Immediate Future of the Facility
The RSAA facilities on Siding Spring will continue to be available to Australian and international astronomers. Remote operation of the SSO telescop es and instruments is a major goal fo r the n ear future, and this is being facilitated by a DEST Systemic Infrastructure Initiative (SII) grant. This initiative will also partially fund a high-speed link from Siding Spring to major Australian institutions to allow faster data transfer, and thus, ultimately some remote observer cap abilities. Fabrication will soon begin on an advanced IFU spectrometer (WiFeS) for the ANU 2.3 m telescope, also funded by the SII grant. This will greatl y increase the spectrometric capability of this telescope. The expected high throughput and relatively high resolution of WiFeS will enable detailed studies of high redshift g alaxies with a telesco pe that is relatively small by today's standards.

3.5 Future Vision of the Facility
As p art of the Stage I rebuild of the lost capability suffered by RSAA as a result of the 2003 bushfires, ANU has decided to invest in t wo RSAA facilities that will ultimately benefit all Australian astronomers . Firstly, the Sky mapper, a 1 .3 m wide-field telescope currently under construction by EOS with a CCD detector array system being built in-house by RSAA, will be used initially for a "Southern Sloan" sky survey, with p art time reserved for open co mpetition. Secondly, a n ew Advan ced Instrumentation and Techn ology Centre (AITC) is under construction on Mount Stro mlo itself that is purpose-built to enable t he conception, design, manufacture and assembly of instruments for the n ext generation of optical/infrared telescopes. Adaptive optics will be a major focus in t echnology development, and s tudent PhD programs in astronomical instrumentation are already being offered .

4 The Australian Virtual Observatory
4.1 Funding and Background
Work on Aus-VO in 2004 and 2005 was p artly funded by Australian Research Council Linkage Infrastructure (Equipment and Facilities) grants. The project partners are the Universities of Melbourne, Sydn ey, New South Wales and Qu eensland ; Monash University, Swinburne University of Technology, the Australian National University, the Victorian Partnership for Advan ced Computing, the CSIRO Australia Telescope National Facility and the AngloAustralian Obs ervatory. These organizations provide matching funds totalling about 33% of the total cost of the projects supported. Additional funding for future years has b een requested fro m the ARC. The Australian Virtual Observatory (Aus-VO, see http://www.aus-vo.org/) will be a facility that provides a distributed, uniform interface to the d ata archives of Australia's major astronomical observatories, and to archives of astrophysical simulati ons. Aus-VO will be a key component of the International Virtual Observatory, a world wide faci lity which will link the archives of the world's major astronomical observ atories into one distributed database. Aus-VO has been a founding member of the International Virtual Obs ervat ory Alliance (IVOA, see http://www.ivoa.net/pub/info/) since June 2002. Annual Aus-VO workshops with international speakers hav e been held in 2002 ­ 2004. Overseas, the total investment of funds in IVOA projects is more than $20 million (US) over the next three to five years.

4.2 Role of the Facility
The IVOA has a mainly coordinating role, defining standards etc, notably the "VOTable" format for data transfer. The tools and s ervices will be provided by individual national VOs. The Aus-

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VO will focus on the VO-compatible archiving of major data s ets fro m Australian observatories as well as developing specific soft ware tools to analyse these data sets. Ex amples of the former include the ATNF ATCA on-line archive (in collaboration with CSIRO ICT). Soft ware tools under develop ment include the ATCA data processing pipeline, a remote visualization system, automated catalogue linkage techniques and data-mining tools.

4.3 High Profile Work Done by the Facility
It is too soon to expect high-impact papers fro m Aus-VO work yet , but there are already some interesting results from the international work . Thes e in clude the discovery of n ew optically faint obscured quasars and the discovery o f new samples of brown d warf stars.

4.4 Immediate Future of the Facility
There are active Aus-VO prog rams underway at several Australian universities and observatories plus CSIRO as listed above. This has b een jointly fund ed by the institutions and the ARC, so will continue at a reduced rate if not directly funded by the ARC. The immediate outcomes of this work will focus on the delivery o f high-quality legacy data products from major Australian observational surveys, as well as the d evelopment o f several specifi c data mining and visualisation tools. In 2005 the critical process of unifying the various co mponents of the Aus-VO will co mmence, using the GrangeNet net work b ackbon e.

4.5 Future Vision of the Facility
It will take a further 3 y ears (2005 ­ 2007) to establish a fully functional Aus-VO. This involves the continued development of VO-co mpatible data pro ducts, new visualisation and dat a-mining software, and the net work infrastructure and h ard ware needed to support the project.

5 PILOT: Pathfinder for an International Large Optical Telescope
5.1 Funding and Background
PILOT (Pathfinder for an International Large Optical Telescope) is a 2 metre optical/IR telescop e capable o f diffraction-limited performance at 550 nm. PILOT is to b e locat ed at the French /Italian Concordia station at Dome C, Antarctica. A co mprehensive science case fo r PILOT is available at http://www.publish.csiro.au/nid/138/paper/AS04077.htm This is a proposed new facility, not yet fund ed. Assu ming that Australia initially provides the telescope and dome, and European collaborators initially provide logistics, adaptive secondary and first-light instruments, the cost to Australia is A$6 m spread over three years ($2 m/year) beginning immediately, with an annual operation cost o f around $1 m/year after that . If Australia paid for everything then the cost would be t wice this; h owev er this is an unlikely scenario because access to Concordia station would necessarily entail Europ ean involvement any way .

5.2 Future Vision of the Facility
This facility would give Australia a new, unique and hi ghly diverse scientific capability within next 5 years, securing Australia's position as wo rld lead er in Antarctic astrono my. Oth er advantages are that it helps secure Australia's political presence on the Ant arctic plateau and leverages ou r involvement in important overseas techn ologies such as Arcetri's adaptive

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secondary mirror. An Australian co mpany (EOS) is keen to participate and could be the p rime contractor.

6 Theoretical Astrophysics
We reco mmend that a specific plan be developed to res ource the integration of theoretical and computational infrastructure into National Facilities. Su ch integration cannot b e sustained solely on the back of ARC grant funding to theoretical and computational astrophysicists in universities. At the present time, approxi mately $1 M per annu m in ARC DP funding (including fello wships) comes to astronomy , and there is the possibility of secu ring a similar additional amount through a Centre of Ex cellence. Even in an extreme scenario where these resources are devoted entirely to scientific (including theoretical and co mputational) support of National Facilities, they are insufficient (as a percentage of the capital and operating costs of a $100M-class facility) to ensure that the scientific imp act of the facilities is maximized (at least, that part of the i mpact which is identifiably Australian).

7 Mileura Widefield Array: Low Frequency Demonstrator
7.1 Funding and Background
The Mileura Widefield Array: Lo w Frequency Demons trator (MWA-LFD) is a n ew teles cope planned for construction during the period 2006 ­ 2008 on the radio-quiet site in WA that is proposed for the SKA. The telescope will operate in the frequency range 80 ­ 300 MHz, which is a largely un explored region of the radio spectrum. The telescope is a partnership between MIT and Harv ard in the US and a consortium of Australian universities, ATNF and the Gov ernment of WA. The p roject is being led by MIT, who h ave invest ed heavily in the technical d esign and development of the teles cope up to this time. The webs ite is http://web.h aystack.mit.edu/arrays/MWA/site/index.html. The Australian partners are covering the cost of their early engagement from their o wn internal funds. Significant funding (~$70k) h as been contributed by the University of Melbourne fo r the early deployment. ANU, ATNF and Curtin University are funding their o wn participation, which involves travel to the site and accommodation, and staff resources. The Australian partners will submit an ARC LIEF grant in 2005 and 2006 for a total of $1 M. This will be match ed by a substantial investment by ATNF and WA Govt of co mmon funding for the LFD and x NTD. Th e US partners hav e requested US$4.5 M fo r the p roject.

7.2 Future Vision of the Facility
The rate of p rogress fo r the construction of the telescop e will depend substantially on the flo w of funds. If the funding fro m the ARC and NSF is secured, then the timescale fo r co mpletion of the telescope will be the end o f 2007. Ho wever if this fund ing is not secured, it will take longer to build the facility. The LFD will be a `campaign-based' science facility, n ot a national facility. This means that individual groups will need to obtain funding to use the telescope for p articular experiments. The primary science projects at this stage are detection and mapping of the epoch of reionisation, heliospheric science and d etection of radio transients.

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