2005-Apr-19 ASAC telecon
Present:
ASAC:
C. Wilson
Mardones
Mundy
Blain
Turner
Carilli
Testi
van Dishoeck
Cox
Richer
Momose
Yamamoto
Project:
Wootten
T. Wilson
Tarenghi
Beasley
Not sure if present:
Schilke
Fukui
Kawabe
- Project news/updates (Tarenghi and Beasley)
Tarenghi
- they survived the Board, AMAC meetings; lots of work has been done
in the last month on rebaselining; the project is
in a difficult phase, have to take serious decisions; it is clear we have to
see the project in 2 steps: what is available/possible now; 2nd phase when
more resources are available
- there has been lots of progress in the Japanese contribution; contract for
correlator, contract for antennas with
Mitshubishi, major progress in Band 4 and 8, also R&D in band 10; it's enormous
progress and very impressive
Beasley (rebaselining)
- AMAC review was an intensive analysis of rebaselining; looked at the
tools and methodology we are using; went reasonable well, AMAC impressed
projecton is on the right course;
- they had a look at the actual numbers, but these hadn't changed
substantially since ASAC meeting in February
- they are continuing to revise the cost estimate sheets etc.; they are
about to begin transferring the
revised cost estimates back into the project budget (PMCS version); the
goal is to have a budget in place that represents the revised budget
- from the Board and AMAC, he didn't get a sense of how endline of
rebaselining will take place; it's
clear more resources are required to finish project;
when/how money turns up and how they will e
take current information and track that remains to be seen
Tarenghi
- Board discussion of antennas and number of antennas to be ordered;
Board agreed cannot be <50 and want to retain possibility of 64
- present version of Operations Plan (version A) adopted as base for further
improvement; Board gave instructions how to discuss/solve remaining problems
- have been receiving limited number of applications for Project Scientist;
will have meeting with search committee; some authority from Board to try
to find other possible solutions if can't find a suitable candidate from
present pool
- Execs (both ESO and AUI) have sent their documents to Finance Committee
and NSF(respectively) identifying acceptable supplier for antennas;
he understands is same supplier for both
Questions:
LGM: does that put us on June for AN contract? A: yes, hopefully
JT: is deadline being missed for AN contract? thought was May ... A: ESO
schedule is May 10-11 Finance Committee meeting; has to also be analyzed
by ESO Council (1-2 weeks later), then can be concluded; earliest time can
be signed is first-second week June
EvD: say more about endgame rebaselining; timescale for when Board
will discuss? A: next opportunity for serious discussion is Board Face to Face
in June; hoping will have cost estimate nailed down and # options costed; in
Pasadena meeting one action item was to generate list of cuts that could be
made to project to stay within current budget; issue is going ahead with AN
contract with rebaselining on-going; starts with list ASAC recommended
all the way down to a long list of items that no one finds acceptable;
in June will look at list to arrive at "comfort level";
next deadline is invasive review NSF requested, which is
likely to happen in Oct-Nov timescale; that is the gate we have to pass through
to attract more funding; working backwards, that means they need to have made
decisions by Aug-Sept i.e. 2005 Q3 will be when rebaselining endgame is played
- Board Communications (Turner, Testi)
* Response
- no formal response from the Board to our report yet; informal response
at the meeting was very positive; everyone seemed to like it; NSF people
have this review coming up and need positive documents for that; our
document was very positive on science
-
EvD pointed out draft Board minutes say ASAC chair emphasizes 40 AN
unacceptable; JT will contact Pat Donahue to get that corrected to
something more like "putting primary goals at risk"
- the Board approved Leonardo Testi as next chair
* New Charges
- no new charges from Board yet; JT made the following list of possibilities:
- revisit Charge 2 from last time
- focus on demonstration science
(AFS suggested Debris Disks as a topic that maybe is
overlooked)
- look over Science Verification Plan now things are settling into
place
- maybe look over Operations plan too?
- also something on software
- Long discussion on software; would be good to hear what is happening i.e.
a report but probably not a charge; are some concerns about software
in the community i.e. timing, when is it going to be ready,
what's going to be ready, etc.; concerns because we don't know what is
happening/planned? might be a good time to look at
delivered software roadmap in rebaselined project
i.e. would Pipeline have caught up and be available for Early Science if
it is delayed past late 2007?
- Summary: 3 most likely charges: revisit Charge 2; demonstration science;
Science Verification Plan; JT will pass these on to Hesser and Wade as
suggestions
- also might consider inviting Hesser and Wade to sit in on ASAC telecon
in future especially when we are considering suggestions for charges
* Term of rotation of the Chair
- term currently 6 months; Board would like input from us by next telecon on
reasonable term
- longer term could make chair more effective; alternative is
having repeat chairs
- wording in bilateral agreement clearly says rotate every 6 months between
Euro and NA side
- consensus seemed to be that we prefered to have
repeating chairs rather than have a longer term for the chair as
a way to build expertise/continuity
* Next ASAC face-to-face meeting
- brief discussion, consensus was should set date ASAP and probably meet
in September if possible, given Board face-to-face meeting in early November
-
EvD will make sure proposed new European ASAC members are kept in the loop
on planning for the meeting
- JT offered to host the meeting in the L.A. area
- MT emphasized the project is going through difficult time with rebaselining
and the invasive review; very important ASAC discuss directly
with the Board to sort out schedule and charge; needs to be raised
at (or in advance) of the Board telecon next week.
- The Board on Physics and Astronomy of the US NRC Report on ALMA (Turner, van Dishoeck)
- A committee has been appointed to provide a letter on rebaselined ALMA
project considering effects on Level I science goals; letter requested by
NSF; leading up to a review going to National Science Board in August; chair
is Blandford; JT and
EvD talked to committee; we think letter has to be
submitted in May and presented to NSB this summer.
-
EvD feels is a constructive committee, trying to help make case for ALMA as
strong as possible; she has collected ASAC responses on questions she
circulated and sent it on to the committee.
JT thinks ALMA will cover such a large range of topics, hard for any committee
to grapple with it and its impact
- Science IPT Report (Wootten)
- Conway is redesigning ALMA configuration for 50 AN, leaving open the
possibility of it being used for 60-64 AN; working on new intermediate
configuration now ; will be done with whole thing by end May
- discussed Semi-Transparent vane tests with Martin-Pintado in Pasadena;
he understands this is a very urgent item, trying to get report out ASAP
- WVR review coming up in few weeks
- ACA correlator review end May; trying to understand if specifications
and requirements are still compatible with the baseline correlator+tuneable
filterbank; this is a major question for that review
- Astronomer Outreach: * ESAC Report (van Dishoeck)
Nothing new, ESAC hasn't met since our last telecon; ESAC report has gone
up to EAB; issue of orginization of Euro ARCs has gone up to S&T
committee of ESO
* ANASAC Report (Wootten, Carilli)
Are considering next ANASAC chair; telecon April 29th; face-to-face meeting
in June.
- Next Meeting 2005-May-3 14:30 UT
--
AlWootten - 05 May 2005