Very Long Baseline Interferometry with the SKA

Understand

Adding VLBI capability to the SKA arrays will greatly broaden the science of the SKA, and is feasible within the current specifications.

• SKA-VLBI can be initially implemented by providing phased-array outputs for SKA1-MID and SKA1-SUR and using these extremely sensitive stations with other radio telescopes, and in SKA2 by realising a distributed configuration providing baselines up to thousands of km, merging it with existing VLBI networks.
• The motivation for and the possible realization of SKA-VLBI is described in this paper.