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I I I Noao Mission p W V Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory • mt* iffS Kitt Peak National Observatory jBHa National Solar Observatory w W US Gemini Project National Optical Astronomy Observatories i i Provisional Program Plan FY 2000 i i i Submitted to the National Science Foundation i September 27,1999 I ! I I 1 I I 1 I I I NOAO MISSION The mission ofNOAO is to enable leading-edge research through the establishment and operation of premier groundbased astronomical researchfacilities, to promote public understanding and support of science, and to advance all aspects of US groundbased I astronomical research. Contents 1 Introduction 3 New Capabilities 18 Direct Support to Principal Investigators 32 Public and Educational Outreach 36 Technical and Administrative Infrastructure 39 Management and Budget Appendices A-J A Milestones FY 2000 B Status of FY 1999 Milestones C FY 2000 Management Budget D Scientific Staff Responsibilities and Research Interests E NOAO Management F Deferred Facilities Maintenance G FY 1998 Visitor and Telescope Usage Statistics H Tenant Facilities at Kitt Peak and CTIO s I NOAO Organizational Chart J NSO 10-Year Funding Profile NOAO FY 2000 Provisional Program Plan: Mission & Contents 1 i i Introduction This ProgramPlan describes in detail what NOAO proposes to accomplish during FY 2000with funding of $29.7 M, which is the amount proposed in the budget submitted by the President to Congress. In keeping with thefact thatthis is thefirst plan forthenextmillennium, theprogram andthe format in which it is presented represent a substantial departure from pastplans. The emphasis is on leadership: NOAO is positioning itselfto undertake initiatives in both solar and nighttime astronomy that will ensure that the US continues to be a world leaderin groundbased astronomy. As a consequence, the FY 2000Program Plan places relatively greater emphasis on the development of advanced capabilities and relatively less emphasis on the operation of existing facilities. The goal is to begin to take the first steps toward achieving the ambitious vision laid out in the NOAO Long Range Plan submitted earlier this year. The fundamental principle that underlies this Program Plan is that the facilities operated by NOAO are an essential component of a national observing system that includes the Gemini telescopes, the independent observatories, and NASA missions. The observing system concept is reflected in our choice of instruments, in new approaches to telescope scheduling, and in our relianceon community partnerships to develop new telescope concepts, data management and data mining tools, and innovative instrumentation. The implementation of this plan requires new modes of working with the community. Specifically, we are basingour approach to the Advanced SolarTelescope and to the next large groundbased telescope on the model used in the early 1980's for development of mirror technologies for 8-m class telescopes: NOAO will serve as facilitator and coordinator of the overall effort, which will rely primarily on placing study contracts with university groups and industry. NOAO will conduct in-house technical programs only in those areas where we are either best qualified to do the work or where external options are not available. Initiatives in data management are central to addressing large-scale scientific problems such as the origin and evolution of galaxies and structure. Again we see the techniques for data mining and tools for sophisticated querying of multiple databases being developed in the community, with NOAO providing the structure that ensures common standards, optimization of multiple distributed efforts, and community access to the results. The instrumentation program presented here is designed to complement what will be available at the independent observatories. The instrumentation for Gemini North and South emphasizes narrow field diffraction-limited imaging and spectroscopy in the near-infrared in order to take advantage of the Gemini design, which is optimized for this type of science. The optical instrumentation for Gemini is complementary to what is available on other US telescopes in each hemisphere. 1 NOAO FY 2000 Provisional Program Plan: Introduction Introduction We estimate that at least one-third of the NOAO and Gemini instruments—and possibly considerably more depending on our success in finding capable external groups—will be built outside NOAO. We are also initiating discussions with AXAF and SIRTF concerning "one-stop shopping" for observing time for the SIRTF First Light Survey and Legacy programs and for some selected portion of the AXAF programs—again to realize the advantages of an observing system. The changing emphasis of the NOAO program will require a change in the administrative structure of NOAO. (The proposed changes are described below in the Management and Budget section.) Specifically, we plan to establish two new project groups. The first group will focus on strategic planning, initiatives, and development. The second will be responsible for supporting science of scale, with emphasis on data pipelining, archiving, and data mining. The FY 2000 spending plans described in this document reflect these changed priorities. NOAO FY 2000 Spending By Program (Total = $29,649 K) Initiatives Outreach $4,144 $588 K (14%) (2%) Instrumentation $6,741 K (23%) Support of Pi's $18,176 K (61%) The FY 2000 program proposed here is divided into two broad components: (1) programs that will provide new capabilities, including initiatives and instrumentation, to the community and (2) programs that support principal investigators and their access to telescopes. These program categories have been broken down in a format similar to a Work Breakdown Structure (WBS), and costs have been developed by WBS element. Since these activities draw on the scientific staff, scientific staff costs have been allocated to each activity. Because effective operation of the organization also depends on having a minimally adequate infrastructure in terms of administrative support and 2 NOAO FY 2000 Provisional Program Plan: Introduction Introduction I maintenance of the physical plant, infrastructure costs have been allocated to each of the component programs as well. All these costs have been aggregated in the chart above. (A separate breakdown of "overhead" costs as a discrete expense category is detailed below in the section on Management and Budget.) In order to keep this plan to a readable length, we describe the major program components briefly, emphasizing key issues and changes in program content relative to last year. Detailed management plans for several projects (e.g., GNIRS and SOLIS) have already been supplied to the NSF, and others are available on request. Similarly, an extensive science justification is prepared before a project is included in the Program Plan, and those justifications can also be made available. The FY 2000 Plan is organized according to the major program activities carried out at the NOAO observatories: ♦ Initiatives - especially programs to provide new telescopes, instrumentation, or other qualitatively new capabilities to the community. ♦ Development of new instrumentation for existing telescopes ♦ Direct support to principal investigators - primarily the operation of existing telescopes at NSO, CTIO, and KPNO, and such related services as the distribution of IRAF and data from the NSO Digital Library. Included in this category is the US Gemini Program (USGP), which supports US users of the Gemini telescopes, ensures oversight of the US contributions to the Gemini instrumentation program, and provides long range planning for the Gemini project. I ♦ Public and educational outreach 3 NOAO FY 2000 Provisional Program Plan: Introduction I 1 ' New Capabilities I In this section, we highlight the new capabilities being FY 2000 New Capabilities by Program Category developed at NOAO. We describe first those projects that (Direct costs =S8.3M) will lead to major new facilities—the category we have Data Mgmt labeled Initiatives. Some of these projects are in the Initiatives $0.19 M $2.9 M planning stages, others are ongoing. In the next section, we (2%) (35%) describe the Instrumentation Program. In the final section, we describe initiatives in the area of Surveys and Data Management. Instruments $5.2 M Initiatives (63%) The Advanced Solar Telescope (AST) The primarygoal for the National Solar Observatory is the construction of the Advanced Solar Telescope. When coupled to adaptive optics, the AST will be capable of breaking the 0.1 arcsec barrier in the visible and providing the resolution needed to analyze the active magnetic microstructure. Models suggest that manyof the physical processes controlling atmospheric heating and magnetic field stability occur on scales of -70 - 100 km or I ~0.1 arcsec, and that magnetic fibrils move at velocities of -0.5 - 0.7 km s"' and have lifetimes of-20 minutes. Achieving high temporal and spectral resolution simultaneously with the necessary signal-to-noise (S/N) ratio requires a high photon flux, which in turn requires a large aperture telescope (>3 m), even for the Sun. It is highly unlikely that a solar telescope of such a largeaperturewill be deployed in space in the next two decades. In the visible, the AST willcomplement forthcoming missions such as SOLAR-B, which will have an aperture of 0.5 m and will operate over a wider field of view than the AST. Critical diagnostics of the solar magnetic I field in the low chromosphere and the corona reside in the thermal infrared, thereby adding a requirement for an all-reflective telescope and low-scattering optics. Over the next two years, NSO will work with the solar community to define the scientific requirements for the AST, a facility that was given a very high priority in the recent report on groundbased solar research by the National Research Council (the Parker Committee Report). NSO will establish an AST consortium and work with the consortium to develop a design and establish the technical feasibility of building a telescope that can meet the stringent requirements on image quality. The goal is to submit a proposal to the National Science Foundation in approximately three years.
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