{"id":63083,"date":"2025-05-22T15:10:03","date_gmt":"2025-05-22T15:10:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nag.com\/?post_type=case-studies&p=63083"},"modified":"2025-05-22T16:11:06","modified_gmt":"2025-05-22T16:11:06","slug":"ska-telescopes-hpc-next-gen-radio-astronomy","status":"publish","type":"case-studies","link":"https:\/\/nag.com\/case-studies\/ska-telescopes-hpc-next-gen-radio-astronomy\/","title":{"rendered":"Powering the SKA Telescopes: HPC for the Next Generation of Radio Astronomy"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Powering the SKA Telescopes: High-Performance Computing for the Next Generation of Radio Astronomy<\/h1>\n \n

Case Study<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n \n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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We\u2019ve helped pave the way for scalable, high-performance <\/em>systems that will power radio telescopes for decades to come.<\/em>
Sean Stansill, HPC Software Engineer, n<\/em>AG<\/h4>\n<\/blockquote>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n
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Overview<\/h3>\n

The SKA Observatory<\/a> (SKAO) is an ambitious, \u20ac2 billion international endeavour to build the world\u2019s largest radio telescope arrays, capable of transforming humanity\u2019s understanding of the universe. Behind this monumental effort lies an equally groundbreaking challenge: processing petabytes of raw data every day into high-resolution astronomical images.<\/p>\n

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n<\/i><\/span>AG\u2019s High-Performance Computing (HPC) software engineer, Sean Stansill and the n<\/i><\/span>AG HPC team, plays a pivotal role in making this possible. Their work ensures the seamless transformation of vast volumes of data into science-ready data products, supporting the SKAO’s mission to accelerate discovery in radio astronomy and gravitational wave science.<\/p>\n

Image Copyright: SKAO<\/p>\n <\/div>\n\n <\/div>\n

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Challenge: Turning an Ambitious Concept into an Operational Reality<\/h3>\n

While the SKA telescopes have been envisioned since late 1980s, the computing infrastructure required to realise them only recently became feasible. Described as \u201csoftware telescopes,\u201d the SKA project does not rely on a single giant dish. Instead, it combines data from hundreds of smaller dishes and thousands of antennas using complex software pipelines. The computing demand is unprecedented \u2014 the two systems must sustain read\/write speeds around 8 terabytes per second, non-stop.<\/p>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

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The real bottleneck? I\/O performance. Unlike embarrassingly parallel tasks, radio astronomy workflows require tightly synchronised data movement across many nodes. This choreography is dictated by the physics of how radio waves are processed. Efficiently managing this scale and complexity is a frontier problem in modern HPC.<\/p>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

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Solution: Engineering Scalable, Future-Proof HPC Software Pipelines\u00a0<\/h3>\n

n<\/i><\/span>AG HPC Services<\/a> are playing a significant role in the Science Data Processing (SDP) phase where raw telescope data becomes scientifically useful. Sean Stansill, n<\/i><\/span>AG HPC Engineer working on the SKAO project has contributed to:<\/p>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n

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