MWA’s first science observations with all 256 tiles
In the last 24 hours the MWA team has achieved a significant milestone.
On September 16th, for the first time, the MWA team achieved science observations with all 256 tiles. That’s 100% availability and utilisation of the array.
This incredible achievement wouldn’t be possible without the efforts of our operations team, who are finishing up a multi-week effort on-site to make this achievement possible. This effort was no small feat, as all 256 tiles need to be powered, all the RF componentry needs to be working, every digital signal chain needs to operate nominally, and the correlator and all backend systems must be functional.
We’d also like the recognise the efforts of our software and management teams. Without the efforts of our teams this achievement would not be possible.
We look forward to continued observations with all 256 tiles!
