SKA Science Town Hall

Over the past several months there has been extensive activity directed at constraining the construction and operating costs of the SKA1 deployment as much as possible, without unduly impacting the scientific capabilities of the observatory. The SKAO has worked closely with the Design Consortia and was assisted by the Science Representatives of the SKA Board in this endeavour. The SKA Board of Directors have now accepted a preliminary package of cost reduction measures that will receive further technical development prior to a decision to update the project design. The package is constructed as an ordered list of measures that allow delivery of an Observatory for a prescribed budget, while permitting the straightforward reinstatement of any impacted capability with additional funding. Funding at the level of the SKA1 construction cost cap is sufficient to retain the ability to deliver every one of the “high priority science objectives” that were identified for the SKA1. This “Town Hall” meeting provides the opportunity to brief the scientific community on the preliminary package of cost reduction measures and for the community to report on their scientific assessments of such measures across the entire breadth of SKA science.