The Square Kilometre Array Observatory (SKAO) has celebrated another construction milestone with the assembly of the first SKA-Mid telescope dish on site in the Northern Cape province. The “big lift” of its 15 m-wide main reflector onto the telescope pedestal was performed by a team from the SKAO, the South African Radio Astronomy Observatory (SARAO) and China’s CETC54, which is manufacturing the dishes and led the 10-country strong consortium behind their design.Construction activity has accelerated at both SKAO telescope sites in the past year. March saw the rollout of the first SKA-Low telescope antennas in Western Australia.“The progress this year across the observatory has been amazing and seeing the first SKA-Mid dish being erected is a significant moment as we head towards the first stage of telescope delivery,” said SKAO acting director of programmes Luca Stringhetti. “There have been challenges, as we anticipated there would be, but it is thanks to the coordinated effort and support of our partners across the globe, combined with significant logistical work by teams at the telescope sites and our headquarters, that we have been able to deploy the first dish structure and four stations on the ground in both of our telescope host countries.” Read the full article in the August edition of EngineerIT