Minutes submitted by C. Wilson.

Present:

Testi C. Wilson Mundy Turner Blain van Dishoeck Richer Schilke Cernicharo Mardones Yamamoto Momose Wootten Kawabe Vila-Vilaro Laing J. Hesser

Old Business

  1. Agenda, Minutes:

Minutes from the last meeting are attached to the agenda: approved.

New Business

  1. Project news/updates (Wootten)
- ESO Council meets today; will consider Finance Committee's request (Al thinks they want to make sure project has enough money to sign antenna contract); Finance Committee will meet again June 20; ALMA Board meets June 21-22 to decide what to do with Antenna procurement; current bids expire June 30

- ALMA camp is completed; construction camp completion end of summer; on high site, determining where viscachas are to protect them; Conway has delivered 50 AN config; Holdaway tacking on 18 km baselines, should be ready in another few weeks, then check out ground around antenna sites

Laing - front end WVR review: both designs met existing specs; panel recommends version of Onsala Dicke switch with one channel not two; this goes ahead as baseline design; outstanding issues to do with more sophisticated applications, in particular distinguishing ice or water droplets from water vapour, correcting single dish pointing; the need for these and the ability of the more sophisticated design to correct them not yet demonstrated, so are opting for the cheapest design as the baseline; decision could change if results come out of future tests; committee concurred WVRs need to be tested at good site ASAP: negotiate with SMA to put both prototypes on SMA; (Richer: negotiations and detailed planning with SMA underway; hope something done by spring 2006); spring 2006 is last opportunity for any changes to be made before production starts

Laing -ACA correlator review: very successful, only minor reservations; he had been worried about compatibility of ACA correlator with baseline correlator + Tunable Filter Banks (TFB); all combinations of frequency and resolution are also supported by ACA correlator; remains one small problem: actual frequency profile of narrow channels of two correlators are very slightly different; various possible mitigating strategies to be considered, and the differences are very small

Wootten - Band 6: being tested in dewar - ATF: put in new version of software - new European project mgr (will come in July from CERN)

  • Rebaselining (Al)

-budgets frozen two weeks ago; now going over this with rebaselining requests; Science IPT having some input i.e. items ASAC considered in Feb; budget now grown compared to last Feb; hard to find significant cuts; will proceed over next few months; expect when JAO finished will come back to ASAC; doesn't expect any large surprises

  • Operations Plan Version A

- has been issued

Question (Richer): - had European science telecon last week, explained what is going on at various ESO meetings, etc.; his understanding 2 decisions: antenna contract, total cost of project; 50 AN ALMA will cost more than currently budgeted, ESO has to think through implications, future priorities, etc; how is situation being handled in U.S.? Answer (Wootten): - not sure can answer; AUI requested NSF to go forward with contract for 25 antennas; Dickman has added several people at NSF to review, because contract is so large; Al thinks due to be approved around now, but hasn't heard anything; thinks once Michael Turner signs off on it, that's last signature needed - question of other cost overruns, rebaselining, he has absolutely no idea; NSF going through a senior review very soon to determine what can continue to support within limited budget while doing design and development for large optical telescope and funding ALMA Operations; ALMA construction comes out of a different budget line at NSF ... (Richer) issues are definitely bundled in Europe: if sign contract for 25 AN, will need to pay more money for ALMA as a whole ...

  1. Board Communications

  • Response of Board to February Report (Testi)

-official response forwarded to ASAC by email last week -response is very positive; thank Jean Turner for very effective presentation at face-to-face meeting; ASAC response to charge 1 very appreciated and will be taken into account; - Board realized didn't have much time to discuss charge 2 on TAC and charge us to look into it at next meeting

Hesser: written and oral report was extremely helpful and influential in Board discussions; Board grateful for hard work we put into it; regarding TAC charge, Board is not in a hurry, opportunity for us to think through existing policies at various observatories and think deeply about what scientific community recommends executives do to allocate time wisely on ALMA

* New Charges (Testi)

- new charges from Board distributed by email

- Charge 1: still some discussion on Board that Charge 1 may happen or not depending on what happens with antennas and rebaselining; will know more about that charge after Board meeting at end of June

- Charge 4: Wootten: new version considered at change control board (CCB) May 25; he has revised it according to comments received then; ready for comment; next, CCB sends it to Director, who sends it to the Board, who would then send it to the ASAC Testi: so probably finally released to us at the end of June van Dishoeck: any significant changes from previous version? Wootten: no, really matter of making it clear to engineers; was shown to various IPTs; changes designed to make meaning clear to people building equipment

Testi: other two charges on TAC and demonstration science; since charge 1 could be big again for next meeting, useful to start working ahead on Charge 2 and 3 before next meeting; identify subset of ASAC to look at these charges, make presentation at face-to-face meeting to trigger discussion CWilson: would be even better if can circulate something in writing before the meeting? yes, if they have time

- Charge 2: Testi: last time was Testi, CWilson, Mardones doing presentation; would like to have some of them involved but also some new people; at Garching meeting didn't converge on role of IPRC; would be good to converge, find out more about what is done at other observatories; CWilson: some continuity useful, maybe larger group, but definitely need new information; Testi: need especially to have Japanese input; Mundy: are we now trilateral? maybe committee with two people from each community

Charge 2 (TAC) subcommittee: Blain(lead), Turner;Yamamoto+1;Mardones;Testi, Richer

ACTION: subcommittee to begin work on Charge 2

- Charge 3: Testi: discussed at May and Sept 2004 meetings; should start with what we said and Board responses, etc. CWilson: need close link with project, because project view of demonstration science has evolved quite a bit from our original ideas Mundy: is this ALMA "one observatory" demonstration science or suggestions for the executives? Testi: thinks we can suggest what we think is more appropriate

Charge 3 (Demonstration Science) subcommittee: CWilson (lead), Mundy; Schilke+1;Laing,Wootten;Yamamoto+Momose; maybe Silva?

ACTION: subcommittee to begin work on Charge 3

Testi: hold off charge 1 and 4 organization until after June Board meeting

  • Organization of Meeting--Date, Venue (Turner, Testi, Wilson)

Testi: board would like us to consider a later meeting; complicated because are a number of project meetings involving people from project; 2nd week October impossible for him personally; - what about meeting in Santiago associated with all the system meetings?

Laing: rough Chile meeting schedule (September) 21-22: ACA PDR Santiago 23-24: ACA 7m AN review (ties up fewer people) 25: move to San Pedro 26-27: IPT meeting (OSF) 28: free in San Pedro 29-30: IPT meeting (OSF) (Apex inauguration 25-26)

Possibilities for ASAC to meet i.e. Sept 23-24 or Oct 1-2 or 2-3, in Santiago

Yamamoto: Japanese members would need to attend ACA review Sept 23-24... Wootten: don't know if Beasley available in late September ...

Testi: Wootten and Laing to figure out when is best time to meet in Santiago, send us possible dates, then see if can find enough people

Testi- preferred option for ASAC members still early September Turner - gets difficult to schedule something in LA if wait too long Testi - will know after board meeting in June; antenna/rebaselining situation will be clear; Board will give us green light for earlier/later meeting - set Sept 4-5 as dates for early meeting; everyone should hold these dates for ASAC meeting until hear from Board; we will also try to identify a set of dates to hold for end of Sept in Santiago

ACTION: Wootten, Laing to check out possible meeting dates in Santiago around other project meetings

ACTION: ASAC members to keep Sept 4-5 clear for possible early ASAC meeting

  1. Science IPT Report (Wootten, Kawabe)

- configurations: Conway has come up with new configuration with large number fewer pads; not quite complete so don't know how many will save exactly (30 odd); constraint was to be able to image as well for 50 AN as for 60 AN; compact configuration still same but with some pads not occupied - plan to release radiosonds simultaneously at several positions across site to understand weather conditions and plans for ancillary calibration devices; needs to be done by August - imaging: some discussion of imaging results by committee in U.S.; didn't have a simulation for high resolution, high S/N imaging; getting files for two simulations of disks - science specifications and requirments: just about finished requirements for frequency switch; working on ones for the nutator; better if nutator closer to prime focus

-question from correlator IPT: baseline correlator at ATF has some modes that are planned to use for early science (no TFB); need to identify some modes with TFB so those can be debugged and available for early science; lots of choices; one seems most important is combination of wideband mode with a narrowband mode

Kawabe: continuing ACA configuration study; ACA phase calibration simulations, will finish draft memo soon; ancillary calibration plan, have sent several comments to Richer; this year will construct several devices for future site testing i.e. IR cloud monitor, short baseline phase monitor to evaluate anomalous refraction; doing OTF simulations with nutator, developing memo they will circulate soon; will have ACA system PDR this September, preparing documentss for this review i.e. ACA science specification and requirements, ACA calibration specification and requirementss, expect to finish drafting these in 1-2 months; perhaps we can discuss these documents at upcoming face-to-face meeting

  1. Outreach

  • ESAC Report (van Dishoeck)

- extensive telecon last week, mostly concerned with feedback from Finance Committee meeting and what will happen at ESO council; picked date for next ESAC meeting (Sept 14)

  • ANASAC Report (Wootten)

- will have face-to-face meeting this Sunday in Cambridge; will discuss ASAC charges, rebaselining; a lot of concentration on NSF senior review, one aspect of which is providing Operations funding for ALMA; some discussion of NAASC

* Madrid Meeting -- Approval of SOC (Testi) o Proposed: Mark Gurwell and Toshikazu Onishi

- proposes we approve these names and send to SOC chair; approved

  1. AOB

Testi: haven't discussed who need to invite to face-to-face meeting; discussed having a report from software people; need to give them early warning; but charges are quite numerous, not sure we will have time to go through presentation on software Mundy: have some major charges (especially charge 1 could be huge); need enough time to consider software well if invite them Testi: lets not invite them (unless we find the charges get less)

  1. Next Meeting 2005-July-5 15:00 UT

* note time shifted 30 minutes later *

(to accommodate CWilson who will be in Hawaii)

-- AlWootten - 07 Jun 2005
Topic revision: r1 - 2005-06-07, AlWootten
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