Kasdon PCB Assemblies play crucial part in detecting faint radio signals from the Universe

Martin Barrett from Kasdon Electronics was invited to attend the Royal Society Summer Science Exhibition last week in London, by the UK’s science and technology facilities council, to view the latest information about the successful deployment of the SKA-Low antennas in Western Australia.

Kasdon are working with the Italian antenna manufacturer SIRIO to provide 180,000 printed circuit board assemblies for the SKA-Low telescope antennas. SKA-Low is designed to observe some of the faintest radio signals from the Universe, which have travelled billions of light years to reach Earth. The Kasdon made PCB Assemblies play a crucial role in the telescope’s ability to do this, as they include the sensitive low noise amplifiers which will boost the signals so that they can be transferred down the signal chain for processing. Each antenna has two low noise amplifiers, which are affixed at the very top of the antenna structure.

The scale of this task relies on Kasdon achieving extremely high standards first time and maintaining a high level of repeatability across its production. Kasdon has nearly 30 years of experience doing this, supporting the science, aerospace, military, medical, and technology sectors.

Kasdon Electronics are so proud to be a part of these amazing achievements marking major advancements in radio astronomy which capture unprecedented views of the universe. The results were just breathtaking, and it was a joy and a pleasure to meet up with some of the SKAO team… well done.