BIWEEKLY CALENDAR OF THE ALMA PROJECT at NRAO July 17, 2005 -- July 31, 2005 ******************************** THIS FORTNIGHT***************************** AUI/NRAO Signs Contract for ALMA Antennas A Word of Thanks from the Director On Monday July 11, on behalf of AUI/NRAO and the North America ALMA project, I signed the contract with Vertex Communications Corporation to procure up to 32 ALMA antennas. (See http://www.aui.edu/press/2005jul11.html.) This was a truly momentous occasion for all astronomers. As you know, ALMA is designed to revolutionize astronomy, and the array's high performance antennas are absolutely critical to its success. I want to express a sincere "thank you" to everyone at the NRAO who contributed to the ALMA antenna efforts. Fred K. Y. Lo ---------------------------------------------------------------------- We delighted to announce that Jeff Zivick has agreed to take up the post of North American Antenna IPT Lead. Jeff started his new position on Monday, July 11, the same day that we signed the antenna contract. Congratulations to Jeff on his new role and excellent timing! Adrian Russell and Fred Lo July 12, 2005 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Jorge Riquelme has joined the AUI/NRAO team in Chile as Construction Supervisor on the 4th of July, 2005. Good day to start working in ALMA!!! Jorge is a Civil Engineer with almost 10 years of experience in Supervision and Management of Site development in large Industrial Projects in Chile. His position will be based at the OSF starting next August. During July he will stay in Santiago and have some trips to San Pedro, learning about and getting involved in this fascinating project. Please welcome Jorge Riquelme as the new Construction Supervisor for the AUI/NRAO Site IPT Construction Contracts for ALMA in Chile His e-mail is: jriquelm@nrao.edu ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Jody Bolyard, the Manager for Environment, Safety, and Security (ES&S), is beginning a year long effort in Santiago in support of the development of the ALMA Safety Program. This is effective July 11. Jacques LaSalle has been hired as ALMA Safety Officer and will begin in September. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Past issues of this Calendar may be viewed at http://www.cv.nrao.edu/~awootten/mmaimcal/ALMACalendars.html See also the ALMA Calendar overview at: https://wikio.nrao.edu/bin/view/ALMA/AlmaCalendar ******************************************************************************* General Happenings OSF: Site museum proposal submitted to Chilean govt. Provisional Acceptance of the extension of the ALMA camp to 30 bed capacity will be on 15-Jul-2005. Closing date of the tender for the construction of the Technical Facilities at the OSF has been extended to 05-Aug-2005 September to result in contracting of the Work in October/November 2005. Construction start on the Contractor Camp expansion is scheduled to be in late July 2005 and completion is scheduled to be in November 2005. Road construction above km 28 started on 09-Jul-2005. Currently there are approximately 41 persons working at the site. AOS: The contract for the construction of the AOS Technical Building foundations has been approved by NSF. The building superstructure and envelope has recently also obtained been approved by NSF. Mobilization will start when the Contract has been signed late July, August 2005- so construction starts shortly afterward. Science team on-site early August for staking new configuration, removing old stakes, characterization tests for WVR/Fast Switching plan, replacement of old battery complement. Tucson: Design of the inner portions of the new configuration plan is finished; refinement of outer pad locations under way to include avoidance of vizcacha colonies. The design now consists of ~185 pads in 29 configurations. Emerson to lead System Requirements Review in CV 26-27 July. Emerson organized and led teleconference to discuss ALMA OSF Holography. ATF: ATF computer and network hardware upgrade/canonicalization completed AOC: Work on slave laser in Central LO rack continued. Assembly of central LO rack continues. Review of '2 GHz' LO design planned for 28 July in Socorro. Review of cable wrap design proposal was conducted in Socorro. Continuing effort towards System Sensitivity Budget vis-a-vis Science Requirements and System Technical Specification. Offline (AIPS++) test report finalized: http://almasw.hq.eso.org/almasw/pub/Usertests/WebHome/Offline.Test3.Report.7july05-final.pdf NTC: The long-planned Delta PDR was held at ESO in Garching 6-7 July, with the result that the PDR is passed with a list of action items and recommendations. The last batch of test equipment and hardware including LO Photonics equipment from Tucson arrived at the NTC; it is to be used by the ALMA FE and BE groups. This effectively closes long and distinguished history of the engineering labs in Tucson. Development of Line Length corrector will continue in Tucson, but move to Charlottesville by August. Installation of the final cables in the first quadrant of the correlator began. NAASC: New documents on Nutator were received from Japan and placed into Science IPT area of edm.alma.cl for discussion, with notes to nutator group. Telecon early August to finish science requirements on nutator. ******************************************************************************* DAILY CALENDAR (Times EDT ) see https://wikio.nrao.edu/bin/view/ALMA/AlmaCalendar Mon 18 July 1100 am: joint discussion (Sci, Site, SE) of the configuration ground survey Tue 19 10:30 AM-11:30 AM: JAO IPT Telecon 11:30 PM-12:30 PM: NAScienceIPT teleconference Archive: http://www.cv.nrao.edu/~awootten/mmaimcal/ Wed 20 Thu 21 9:30 AM-11:00 AM: Management IPT Teleconference Fri 22 Sat 23 Sun 24 Mon July 25 Tue July 26 All Day System Requirements Review, Charlottesville Wed 27 All Day System Requirements Review, Charlottesville Thu 28 All Day Antenna Kickoff Meeting, Dallas 9:30 AM-11:00 AM: Management IPT Teleconference (with Japan) Fri 29 All Day Antenna Kickoff Meeting, Dallas 9:00 AM-10:00 AM: OSF Holography Telecon Sat 30 Sun 31 ****************************** UPCOMING EVENTS ****************************** ALMA Calendar--https://wikio.nrao.edu/bin/view/ALMA/AlmaCalendar * Jul 26-27 -- System Requirements Review, Charlottesville * Aug 3 -- ASAC Telecon * Aug 4 -- ALMA Board Telecon * Aug 25 -- Amplitude Calibration Review, Grenoble * Aug 26 -- ANASAC Telecon * Aug 29 -- Antenna meeting, Kilgore, Tx * Sep 14 -- ESAC Meeting, Garching * Sep 15 -- European ALMA Board, Garching * Sep 22-23 -- ACA System Review, Santiago Postponed, probably to Early Nov, Tokyo * Sep 24-30 -- JAO/IPT Meeting, OSF Postponed, probably to early Dec. * Sep 29-30 -- ESO Committee of Council * Oct 1-2 -- ASAC Meeting, Santiago * Oct 6 -- Rolling Stones come to Scott Stadium, Charlottesville * Oct 13-16 -- ALMA Cost Review proposed, Munich * Nov 1-2 -- ALMA Board, Santiago * Nov 8-9 -- ESO Finance Committee * Dec 7-8 -- ESO Council Regular Meeting * Jan 4-7 -- URSI/NA, Boulder * Jan 12-14 -- ALMA Zmachines workshop ******************************* TECHNICAL NEWS************************ ******************************ALSO OF INTEREST******************************* SMA reports: No detections of molecular spectral lines from Comet Temple 1 have been reported from the SMA, JCMT, or CSO. An OH line (18 cm?) was detected by the GBT and an HCN line (3-2) as well as several CH3OH lines were detected by the IRAM 30m. These results place strong constraints on the rate of seepage of molecules from below the comet's surface. * FIRST FRINGES WITH THE eSMA! mid morning, JUL 12. The JCMT was * * inserted in place of Antenna 8, for this very preliminary test * * at 260 GHz (using the SMA 345 GHz receiver). There was only 1 * * GHz of common bandwidth, and no attempt was made to match * * polarizations. A call for new SMA proposals for the observing period NOV 1, 2005 thru APR 30, 2006 will be issued soon. The proposal deadline is expected to be SEP 12, 2005. The announcement will invite proposals for "legacy programs." Workshop on Submillimeter Astronomy sponsored by SAO (the Power Point presentation of most talks will be available on this site soon) http://cfa-www.harvard.edu/smast05 ****************************************************************************** Please send information for upcoming calendars by Friday evening of the preceding biweekly period to Jennifer Neighbours or Al Wootten via e-mail (jneighbo@nrao.edu or awootten@nrao.edu). The calendar will be issued between late Friday and sometime on Monday by e-mail to all NRAO scientific staff members and anyone else interested. A specific mailing list, alma-info, has been created for anyone wishing to receive it. Past issues are available at http://www.cv.nrao.edu/~awootten/mmaimcal/ALMACalendars.html