SKA in Germany

Germany joined the SKAO as its twelfth member on 01.11.2024. The country’s large scientific community is represented in all science working groups of the SKAO. Since the beginning this community has been involved in the SKAO’s technical development studies. Germany is operating the SKA pathfinder telescope in Effelsberg and six international LOFAR stations, as well as a SKA-Mid telescope at the MeerKAT Side in South Africa (SKAMPI). Germany builds up the MeerKAT Extension MeerKAT+ together with its partners SARAO and INAF.

German scientists were involved in the idea of the SKA from the very beginning and participated actively in the various planning entities that existed before the SKA Organization was founded. The science case describing the fundamental questions that the SKA will answer has been developed in large parts by German astronomers according to their interests. As a member of six of the SKAO consortia responsible for technical planning, Germany was particularly involved in this area. Thus, the German scientific community contributed significantly to the planning and prototyping of the SKA-Mid dishes. The strong German involvement in the distributed radio telescope LOFAR for the past 25 years, provides the foundation for a leading contribution to SKA-Low. For more than 30 years, various stakeholders in Germany and beyond have been planning, developing and negotiating to become part of the SKAO.

Germany will use the SKA for its own research in the field of radio astronomy and will continue to carry out development work on the instruments in South Africa and Australia. German institutions are conducting design studies for the SKA and operating pathfinder telescopes in Effelsberg and six international LOFAR stations, as well as SKAMPI in South Africa. The Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy in Bonn, Germany, is developing and building receivers for SKA-Mid. The 14 telescopes provided by Germany to MeerKAT+ will become an integral part of SKA-Mid.

In the SKAO Council, Germany is represented by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF). The Max Planck Society (MPG), the German Center for Astrophysics (DZA) and the Association for Data-Intensive Radio Astronomy (VdR) delegate committee members.

Max Planck Society (MPG)

Founded in 1948, the Max Planck Society (Max-Planck-Gesellschaft – MPG) conducts basic research in the natural sciences, life sciences, and humanities within 84 research institutes in Germany. On the development of SKA instrumentation, on Germany’s behalf, the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy (MPIfR) and the Max Planck Society (MPG) were significantly involved in the development and construction of the prototype dish antenna for the SKAO’s mid-frequency telescope. The MPG-SKA dish began operations in South Africa in the autumn of 2019 and has been serving for the SKAO as a test bed for SKA-mid developments.

German Center for Astrophysics (DZA)

The German Centre for Astrophysics (Deutsches Zentrum für Astrophysik - DZA), a new large-scale research center dedicated to astrophysics, advancing research, technology development and data-sciences, is being built. The DZA will ensure access for German science to future large-scale international projects and also open up opportunities for industry to participate in tenders. The concept of the DZA will achieve cutting-edge astronomical research, pool and process the data from future large telescopes, such as the SKAO, or the Einstein telescope and serve as technology and transfer center where new receiver and sensor technologies, silicon optics, modern instrumentation and control techniques for observatories will be developed.

Association for Data-Intensive Radio Astronomy (VdR)

In 2019 the Association for Data-Intensive Radio Astronomy (Verein für datenintensive Radioastronomie e.V. - VdR) was founded. This association of now 14 German universities and research institutions organizes and coordinates activities in the German radio astronomy community and, in particular, in science data management. It links the German astronomical community with the SKA community and with industrial and political partners who are interested in the SKA. In particular, the VdR coordinates and supports the German radio astronomy community, it fosters the development and networking of the digital research data infrastructure required for the use of SKA. The association provides a platform for the discussion and planning of key radio astronomical projects and it coordinates collaboration with industrial and political partners interested in SKAO.

Germany is involved in all SKAO science working groups and is striving for a leading position in key science projects, driven by the German astronomical community. This is accompanied by the development of technical innovations as a unique selling point. Another challenge that the German astronomical community will take on in the context of the SKA is large-scale data processing. What is needed is to develop approaches to solving IT problems of the future.

Furthermore, Germany is aiming to make key contributions to the SKA-VLBI observing mode and implementation into intercontinental networks, increasing the angular resolution of the SKA-mid array into the milliarcsecond regime by using the 100m telescope in Effelsberg, which remains the single most sensitive element in the European VLBI Array (EVN), and planned new telescopes such as a new SKA-mid antenna in Botswana and the Wetterstein Millimeter Telescope in Bavaria. Our strong role in SKA-VLBI will build on previous leading contributions of German groups in building and coordinating worldwide VLBI arrays and in phasing large interferometric arrays (ALMA, MeerKAT) as well as on successful VLBI tests with the SKAMPI prototype telescope.