with Phase 2 In April 2011, Jodrell Bank Observatory of the University of Manchester, in Cheshire, England was announced as the location for the project headquarters. In November 2011, the SKA Organisation was formed as an intergovernmental organisation and the project moved from a collaboration to an independent, not for profit, company. In February 2012, a former Australian SKA Committee chairman raised concerns with South African media about risks at the Australian candidate site, particularly in terms of cost, mining interference and land agreements. SKA Australia stated that all points had been addressed in the site bid. In March 2012 it was reported that the SKA Site Advisory Committee had made a confidential report in February that the South African bid was stronger. However a scientific working group was set up to explore possible implementation options of the two candidate host regions, and on 25 May 2012 it was announced that it had been determined that the SKA would be split over the South African and African sites, and the Australia and New Zealand sites. While New Zealand remained a member of the SKA Organisation in 2014, it appeared that no SKA infrastructure was likely to be located in New Zealand. In April 2015, the headquarters of the SKA project were chosen to be located at the Jodrell Bank Observatory in the UK, officially opened in July 2019. Initial construction contracts began in 2018. Scientific observations with the fully completed array On 12 March 2019, the Square Kilometre Array Observatory (SKAO) was founded in Rome by seven initial member countries: Australia, China, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, South Africa and the United Kingdom. India and Sweden are expected to follow shortly, and eight other countries have expressed interest to join in the future. This international organisation was tasked with building and operating the facility, with the first construction contracts By mid-2019, the start of scientific observations were expected to start no earlier than 2027. In July 2019, New Zealand withdrew from the project. , four precursor facilities were already operating: MeerKAT and the Hydrogen Epoch of Reionization Array (HERA) in South Africa, and the Australian SKA Pathfinder (ASKAP) and Murchison Widefield Array (MWA) in Western Australia. The construction phase of the project began on 5 December 2022 in Australia and South Africa, with delegations from each of the eight countries leading the project attending ceremonies to celebrate the event. The Australian