Thursday, 9 am MT, 11 am ET, 22 January 2015

Logistics

Agenda

• 15B
  • Helpdesk Tickets (All)
  • PST Review Items (Dana, Jen, Rick)
  • PHT Requirements (Barry/Gustaaf)
  • SRP Recruitment (Mark/Dave)
  • TAC Recruitment (Tim)

• External Proposals (Dana)

• AOB

Minutes

• 15B
  • Helpdesk Tickets. Two regular proposals have been submitted. A handful of mostly routine helpdesk tickets so far. ToneyMInter noted one issue with a user who wanted to upload a table to the technical justification page. We recommend that she either puts this table in the scientific justification page (and notes this in the technical justification section), or puts the info in ascii in a technical justification textbox.
  • PST Review Items. JenPlank is working on several review items. We have converged on the format for the import/export file for individual reviews. The other two items should be straight forward.
  • PHT Requirements. BarryClark, GustaafVanMoorsel, HeidiMedlin, and MarkClaussen met to discuss the PHT PoR. They converged on JIRA tickets to complete this cycle divided into three categories (see below). RickAn will forward this info to StephanWitz for review. These items all have the same priority.
    • Items for TAC meeting due 23 March 2015.
    • Items for Disposition Letters due 1 May 2015.
    • Items for 16A CfP due 1 June 2015.
  • SRP Recruitment. MarkClaussen reported we still have one ETP position and one ISM (15B only) position. He had several rejections. The ISM already has one NRAO person. DavidFrayer did not attend but had one AGN position remaining.
  • TAC Recruitment. TimBastian reported we still have one (NGA) position to fill. He hopes to hear back today.

• External Proposals. We discussed how external proposals are coordinated and reviewed. First, MarkClaussen points out that "External" is too general so let us define the following:
  • Proposal Types:
    • External Proposals: proposals submitted to an external observatory (HST, Swift, Chandra, Fermi) that have requested NRAO telescope time. These proposals do not go through the NRAO TAC, but NRAO performs a technical review.
    • NRAO Joint Proposals: proposals submitted to NRAO that use two or more NRAO telescopes. These proposals are treated like regular proposals but are indicated as joint.
    • Mixed Joint Proposals: proposals submitted to NRAO that use two or more telescope that include one non-NRAO telescope (HST, Swift). These proposals go though the NRAO TAC and require a technical review from the non-NRAO telescope observatory.
    • Sponsored Proposals: proposals submitted to NRAO that are sponsored by an organization and are guaranteed telescope time. These proposals do not go though any TAC, but NRAO performs a technical review.
  • Based on input from MarkClaussen, ToneyMinter, and TimBastian here is the current situation.
    • We have a memorandum of understanding (MOU) for Chandra, Swift, and Fermi. The Fermi MOU is only a draft, however, and the details of the Chandra MOU are specified in each CfP. There is no MOU for HST and we have a gentleman's agreement for now.
    • External Proposals. HST, Swift, Chandra, and Fermi participate. For Chandra and Fermi we receive all submitted proposals which are mostly for the VLA/VLBA and consist of about 30 proposals. MarkClaussen does most of the technical reviews and this is a significant effort. We just received 3 proposals from Swift with VLA time and 1 proposal from HST with GBT time. We contact the PI about observing using the normal channels unless the NRAO observations have to be performed simultaneously, in which case we coordinate with the other observatory.
    • Mixed Joint Proposals: HST and Swift participate. These programs are new. We have sent out requests for a few technical reviews.
    • Current contacts:
      • HST: Neill Reid (inr@stsci.edu) or Brett Blacker (blacker@stsci.edu)
      • Swift: Nora Troja (eleonora.troja@nasa.gov)
      • Chandra: Paul Green (pgreen@cfa.harvard.edu)
      • Fermi: Chris Shrader (Chris.R.Shrader@nasa.gov)
  • Actions: TimBastian and DanaBalser will work to better coordinate these efforts. In particular we need to establish the procedures for getting technical reviews from HST and Swift. If would be good if we had these before our SRP telecon but at a minimum we need them before the TAC meeting. We agreed to setup an email exploder such that all the interested parties will receive information. The list will consist of TimBastian, DanaBalser, MarkClaussen, ToneyMInter, GarethHunt, GustaafVanMoorsel, and BarryClark.

• AOB
  • ClaireChandler noted that the User Committee report response was out and we should review any TTA items for the next meeting.