Over the past months the MeerKAT project team have been developing the scope, specifications and development strategy for the MeerKAT. A four-person "drafting team" developed a MeerKAT document that mirrors the Draft SKA Specifications document that was produced over the same period by the "Tiger Team" set up by the SKA's International Site Selection Committee (ISSC) at its last meeting. MeerKAT Project Scientist Justin Jonas is a member of both the SKA Specifications Tiger Team and the MeerKAT drafting team, and so the two documents share synergies.

The Draft SKA Specifications document outlines various scenarios for the implementation of the various phases of the SKA. One scenario specifies the use of medium sized dishes (10 - 15 m) with "single-pixel wideband feeds" as the receptor for the SKA mid-frequency band (500 MHz - 3 GHz). The MeerKAT scope document specifies MeerKAT as a demonstrator for this SKA concept. The reference design specification for MeerKAT is an array of 80 12 m dishes with single-pixel wideband feeds covering the 500 MHz to 2.5 GHz frequency range. The receivers will be cryogenically cooled to achieve the best sensitivity possible. The array configuration will be centrally concentrated to provide good brightness temperature sensitivity, but will also extend out to nearly 10 km in order to provide sufficient resolution for optical cross-identification.

The MeerKAT scope document outlines the development path necessary to ensure that MeerKAT is implemented successfully, within budget, and on time. An important phase in this development path is the construction of the KAT-7 prototype array at the Karoo site. KAT-7 will primarily be an engineering test-bed, but it will also be capable of scientific observations and will be the first seven antennas of the full MeerKAT array.

The MeerKAT scope document is currently being reviewed, and will be made public once the review process is completed.