GMV delivers the beating heart of the SKA telescopes

GMV UK develops technology and services in Position, Navigation and Timing (PNT), delivering high precision and high integrity systems into mission critical applications. It has two UK offices located in Nottingham and in Harwell. The company has been collaborating with the international time metrology community for over 20 years and has a pedigree in securing business in PNT with the European Space Agency.

GMV is providing the synchronisation and timing timescale for both SKA telescopes, a central system based on atomic clocks that will timestamp each signal, continuously comparing the clocks with each other and via satellite with UTC, the international standard, to identify any inaccuracies. This is expected to operate over the telescopes’ 50-year projected lifespan. GMV UK develops technology and services in position, navigation and timing and has been collaborating with the international time metrology community for over 20 years.

Working with the SKAO has allowed GMV UK to expand their activities in the emerging timing sector. The SKAO contract, together with other timing contracts from the European Space Agency, has generated further success with the UK Space Agency on their Two Way Satellite Time and Frequency Transfer project.

The UK government recently published a Framework for Greater PNT Resilience, which presents measures for the UK to reduce its reliance on GNSS for time provision, and GMV UK can now demonstrate their ability to deploy large timescale systems and distribute time in operational environments. In addition to SKAO Timescale, GMV led a consortium which was awarded a £2M contract from Innovate UK to develop a sovereign White Rabbit switch featuring a Quantum holdover clock which will further help protect the UK’s critical infrastructure and networks.