ASAC telecon 1 JUNE 2004

Richer, Wootten, van Dishoeck, Mardones, Turner, Tarenghi, Schilke, Mundy,
Myers, T. Wilson, Laing, C. Wilson, Cox


Project update: M. Tarenghi  

Rick Murowinski has joined JAO as Project Engineer.  Attended meeting in
Socorro, backend review.  Tony Beasley has accepted to become project manager,
starting 15 September.  He is already working with the project, coming to
Chile in July for initiation.  The candidate from the search committee for
project scientist has decided not to accept the position.  Today the Search
Committee will examine avenues to pursue now.  MT suggests to readvertise,
along with the Deputy Director for Science Operations.  Please don't hesitate
to submit names.  Text of advertisement to come to Wootten for distribution.

Backend review: 

Suffered same problem as system design review--immature for the review.  MT is
worried and is discussing within IPT how to fix this.  We are late and there
is a threat.  Laing: BE not ready for CDR.  Acknowledged by the BE IPT.  The
committee felt it was a large and disparate system and that a few delta CDRs
later not adequate.  A large scale delta CDR needed at the end of the year.
Many good things presented, but a number of worrying trends, a multiplication
of approacheds, could be discerned.  Nothing on LO presented.  MT: Project
Engineer and Manager will take an active role in putting this train back on
the tracks.  We should be more advanced; there may be some delay in the tests
of the prototype interferometer.

Antenna evaluation group have completed their work.  Friday MT received the
report which was sent to the Directors; a telecon today will discuss it.  All
major aspects of both antennas have been tested and we have substantial
information on these two prototypes.  This is timely as we have not quite
completed analyzing the technical offer on the production antennas.

Reports from B9, B3 and B6 have arrived.  These offer a clear statement of
difficulties and progress.  Next week we review B7, and shortly there will PDR
reports for all of the bands.  Access to these documents is barred to the
ASAC.  MT will check on this with Haupt. 

In Chile work progresses well on the site, the ALMA camp has people living in
it and within the next few weeks the reply to the AOS call for tenders will
come in.  Lots of work on the OSF building; contract for that will be placed
by the end of the year.  In Santiago we have a contract for office space,
smaller than planned.  Also offers received from U. Chile and ESO for land to
build on.  Hope to move into office in the second half of October.  MT hopes
to see many of you spend time with the JAO.  Ethan Schreier appointed head of
AUI, already showing interest in ALMA.

Ops plan H being worked on.  MT anxious to see the text of ASAC report as
early as today so that your comments may be incorporated.  Version H should
contain all comments from the Executives and from the ASAC.  Mundy: should we
send this to Ian and he forward to Tarenghi?  van Dishoeck: comments on Ops
plan to be sent directly to Massimo.  These detailed comments will go directly
to the Board secy.  C. Wilson we sent FE comments to the chair of the Board
asking permission to pass it along to the JAO.  MT: OK do that, only a draft
of the Ops plans comments is needed.  EvD: This will happen within a few days.

Japan negotiations contiue, telecon 3 June.  Draft of possible agreement
exists.  Hope agreement can be reached in June.

We continue to study proposals for production antennas.  The companies will
respond to questions by the end of this week.  Final recommendations from JTEG
20-21 June.  24 June will be the opening of the commercial portion of the
bids.

Board meeting: Mundy has circulated charges, response, and executive summary.
Now we will discuss these item by item for changes.

Style: boldface on asac recommendations?  C.Wilson suggests leaving them in
boldface in text to draw them out for the board.  AMAC does this in little
boxes.  Feedback has suggested this helps the Board.  Wording in exec summary
should be identical to what is in text.  I like my wording in section 1 better
than yours.  There followed some discussion of how best to make points to the
Board within the report, with suggestions from past chairpeople.  Mundy's take
on this is that the executive summary might be a prose style with all bullets
at the end in summary.  Several note the historical basis of this format.
General agreement to go with the past format, but with Lee's ability to
whatever format he desires emphasized.

Cox: Should we also summarize other presentations that we heard?  For example,
the presentation by the Japanese, and on the WVRs.  Keep the report as brief
and focused as possible as the details of what we heard will not be too
relevant to the Board.

Change for Charge 1.  Polarization unfinished; perhaps not comment on this
quite yet pending Science IPT efforts.  Can you be very precise about the
numbers--if you speak of Allen variance please state that.  The descriptions
come directly from the technical requirements documents.  Perhaps the
reference to the requirement number would be ideal.

Charge 2: Note the comments from Ewine via email.  We can expand this with
comments which are available but which require some digging in the DRSP.  We
can reference the Herschel-ALMA contacts.  Section 4.3 is probably too
detailed for the board and could be summarized.  Should the ATF go off and
survey 50,000 sources.  Should we have a definite recommendation on what we
can do without going crazy.  MT the program to study calibrators is not in the
baseline.  If you favor it you can.  But we do not have resources for this.
LGM: We think it is a good idea but it should not conflict with getting the
array going.  AW: We have this as part of our Science IPT plan, as an element
of science verification.  JR: In 4.2 should we be more focussed.  What is our
plan?  RL: There is a kickoff meeting on 10 June for the Guilloteau device.
TW: We will also continue to investigate existing solutions (ST vane) and
absolute calibration horns.

Charge 3: Comments from EvD were received today attempting to clarify some of
the points here.  Deomstration science projects should be better defined and
discussed.  Mundy: we need images for the funding agencies to ensure the flow
of funds; we also need to get science for the community to let astronomers
know what science ALMA can produce.  CW: This is a new idea for the project
and needs to be described quite carefully.  TW: (inaudible).  Laing: need to
use multiple configurations was discussed.  LGM: We need to resist any
constraints to too few configurations.  We'd like to reaffirm that the six
configuration proposal is sensible.  CW: availability of B7 is mandatory is
what is in this text, which is not what we said before--two bands, B3 and one
other.  We did not specify which band it should be.  MT: You should not say
mandatory.  PS: One more comment on being specific about details with respect
to other facilities.  I don't feel comfortable with too many details being
presented here.  Perhaps a separate report on complementary facilities would
be useful.  AW: A previous appendix of an ASAC report discusses other mm
facilities; one could enlarge the scope of this document.  DM: The high
resolution configuration will be the highest available; this deserves some
emphasis.  Baselines of ~1km will be available on other arrays, though perhaps
not with the advantages of the excellent site and collecting area.

Charge 4: 

LGM: The Board has some doubts about the Ops Plan.  MT: This is surprising,
what are their concerns?  LGM: I'd prefer to leave that aside.  CW: Let's
return to the draft.  What does 'software approaching the edge of viability
mean?"  JT: We need to say that we recommend that there be sufficient time
available for the testing of the software.  We need to separate when the
software is ready and when the pipeline is working.  Careful about the word
viability.  CW: Say plan looks good at the moment but relies on instrumental
supply of data for completion.  This discussion should actually go into charge
5.  MT: Is there a major concern which requires major changes to the
operations plan?  LGM: Major shortcoming were that Early Ops plans were
incomplete.  EvD: Many areas have that attribute--TAC process is vauge at
present.  The inclusion of demonstration projects also need attention.  MT:
What about in 2011--any major needs unaddressed?  EvD: face-to-face needs not
addressed.  MT: We are anxious to see and act upon your report.

Charge 5:  

Much discussion of GUIs and religion.  GUIs should not be emphasized too much.

This needs to be shipped off by 7 June or so.  Please deliver changed text by
5pm EDT 2 June.  Do we want to redistribute the text? Yes.  I will do that by
Thursday pm.  Do we want to have another telecon.  Most: email discussion
would be fine.

More detailed comments on the Ops Plan should go to EvD by EOB today or
tomorrow.  She will collect these and forward them to the Board.

Agenda:

Science IPT report

Regional SAC reports:

ESAC: recommendations to ESO Council, then call for statements of interest for
additional functions.  Probably a Fall proposal call.  Note complete meeting
for September 24.  

ANASAC: Is preparing a report from the face-to-face meeting.  The AAS has been
asked to host an ALMA Town Hall meeting at the January 2005 meeting in San
Diego.  Paul van den Bout will assume duties as Head of the NA ALMA Science
Center on 15 June.

LGM: We have not discussed Charges for the future--we really need to have
something to suggest to the Board.  EvD: TAC process is now becoming timely.
CW: SSR charge may not be ready by September either.  MT: Remember that the
charges are on the agenda for 23 June.  Descoping plan is being assembled for
the AMAC; we could be asked to comment upon this.  It should be up to the
Board to ask us for this.

The next telecon will be on Tuesday 6 July at 1430 UT.