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
- Agenda, Minutes:
Minutes from the last meeting are attached to the agenda: approved.
New Business
- 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)
-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 ...
- 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
- 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
- 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)
- 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
- 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)
- 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