SYSTEM ENGINEERING MANAGEMENT PLAN

An overall high level schedule for the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) project is shown in Figure 1 and it can be seen that the project is currently within the Preparatory SKA (PrepSKA) phase. During the preceding years many working groups and task forces have been active across the globe defining and refining the SKA science and engineering. This has resulted in the publication of many documents and memos forming a solid base from which PrepSKA could be launched.
One of these memos, Memo 100 [2], captured and presented the baseline design of the instrument. During the review of this document by the SKA Specification Review Committee it was suggested that a reference science mission be developed against which this design could be measured. This lead to the development of the Design Reference Mission (DRM) (formerly known as the Reference Science Plan (RSP)) which has official release status. From the platform and baseline established by these two documents (Memo 100 and DRM) the work for the next few years will move forward to the eventual goal of delivering a fully costed system design by the end of PrepSKA.