5 April 2006 ASAC Telecon J. Turner, C. Wilson, Wootten, Yamamoto, Baltasar, Carilli, Emerson, Mardones, Blain, T. Wilson # Project news/updates Wootten gave project updates, with additions from Christine. This included a short review of the recent AMAC and Board meetings in Kyoto. Judy Sunley from NSF replaced Bob Dickman for the Board meeting. J. Sunley reported a letter to the Board from A. Bement, Director of NSF, endorsing construction of a 50 element ALMA. Board subcommittees have been considering specific action items (e.g. Personnel Committee and ALMA Budget Committee). OSF construction and AOS TB finishing await funding agency approval. Construction has gone well, with the road nearly finished, and the AOS TB shell due to be finished in two weeks. Beasley presented a plan to have ALMA procure power from the local Chilean grid. Murowinski estimated first fringes at the ATF will occur in November, following an anticipated August move from the AOC lab to the ATF. Wilson displayed some early results from the WVR tests on the SMA, which show 183 GHz signal tracking astronomical phase at 230 GHz on 200m baseline quite well. Board members are still working towards a final agreement with Japan on June 30. Kaifu-san retired 31 March as Director General of NAOJ; Miyama-san will become Director General. Reports were also given on the Japan agreement with Taiwan and also on the proto agreement between NA and Taiwan Chris: gave summary of Taiwan NA information - 2 research funding source in Taiwan; one is Academica Sineca, the other is the National Science Council - agreement with Taiwan and Japan is through Academica - with NA through National Science Council - last year NSF director sent letter to NSC minister; met in D.C., agreement in principle - visited Taiwan in Dec (Turner, Dickman, Lo, one other I didn't catch) - minister Wu sent letter of intent - contribute equivalent of 2-3 fully equipped ALMA 12 m antennas - in return, NA will try to place up to 50% of contracts in Taiwan - agreement between NRAO and ASIAA, Taiwanese astronomers will be allowed to apply for ALMA NA time and NRAO telescopes - Taiwan will also raise money to contribute to ALMA Ops - hoping to sign an agreement this fall - Taiwan would be supplying equivalent resources for 2-3 AN; unit of value; not actually supplying the ANs. The total NA complement would remain at 25. In other news, Wootten noted that Ziurys had shown a SgrB2 spectrum at the American Chemical Society meeting in Atlanta last week, obtained with an ALMA prototype B6 front end on the SMT. This system achieved 107 K system temperature, SSB at 45 deg. elevation at 232 GHz, with > 20 db image rejection, good baselines. Wootten also noted the wiki page on ALMA Safety Requirements which is linked to the agenda. # Board Communications Chris Wilson reported that the oral report was well-received, recommendations were bulleted in her presentation to clarify them to the Board. This was well-received, as was the recommendation on potential new charges. What has ever happened with ASAC recommendations in the past? There has been no general assessment. E. van Dishoeck recommended more science content in the report. Overall the Board meeting went very well. * New Charges. The Board, in Kyoto, approved the revised charge for the next ASAC meeting as follows: o The ASAC is requested to consider the following topics, and to make recommendations to the Board that include your priority or time scale where your recommendations require expenditure of ALMA's fixed resources: + 1. Review the revised Commissioning and Science Verification Plan for ALMA + 2. Review the revised Calibration Plan for ALMA + 3. Review the existing work on developing complete descriptions of the ALMA observing modes (e.g. software, hardware etc.) and make recommendations as to their relative priority + 4. Any other matters that you want to bring to the Board's attention. The Computing followup charge discussed by the ASAC was declined, but the Board would be glad to receive comments from the ASAC. Another message to be conveyed: the Board noted that it may not be possible to complete a review of all of these charges by September, in which case a progress report would be quite acceptable. The report will be delivered at the 2006 November 8 meeting. Wootten reported on Science IPT work. A followup to the System Requirements Review meeting will occur 24-25 April and work has continued on cleaning up documents in preparation for that. Other items have come to the Science IPT for clarification. There were, for instance, certain reqs dealing with AN which were going to be moved to system reqs, but weren't updated; have now been, so will probably update sci reqs again for the system requirements meeting April 24-25 in Garching. Another point which has come up - for LO, in order to do fast switching switch between any two bands on ALMA, would need 4 expensive laser components; if only need Band 3 and Band X, then only need 1 laser component; that is their recommendation (which can also cover Band 4 and part of Band 2) - CW: if wanted to switch between 7 and 9, how fast could you do it? - Al: >~ 1.5 secs; always have Band 3 and 2 other Bands on - Daryl: issue is lasers are cooled thermally, so may not be able to meet 1.5 s spec Cal Group is considering solar calibration, as if Solar Filter is in, won't have Band 3, WVR, or amplitude calibration device; slow switching only Requirements for the 1/4 wave plate are also under consideration: developed specs in 2000 but not sure present leadership has those specs; Crystal Brogan is working on Sci Req for plate There was no ESAC report. ANASAC: Carilli reported that there has been no ANASAC meeting since the last ASAC meeting. A subcommittee on grants has therefore not reported back. The elements for the ALMA special session of the joint CASCA/AAS meeting in June in Calgary are in place; the poster deadline has passed. There will be an internal review of the NAASC plans next Tuesday in Charlottesville followed by one from NSF the last week of the month. JSAC: Yamamoto reported that a special meeting on ALMA at the Japanese Astronomical Society conclave in Wakayama was a success-200 or more people were in the audience. P. T. P. Ho gave a good keynote speech. The current status of ALMA was disseminated. This was a good chance for sharing status of ALMA with Japanese astronomers. Respectfully submitted, Al and Chris