ALMA Science Advisory Committee

 

Teleconference, 10 October 2001

 

Draft Minutes

 

Participants: R. Bachiller, G. Blake, R. Booth, L. Bronfman, R. Brown, P. Cox, N. Evans, Y. Fukui, S. Guilloteau, M. Gurwell, T. Hasegawa, R. Kurz, J. Mangum, N. Nakai, S. Sakamoto, P. Schilke, P. Shaver, K. Tatematsu, E. van Dishoeck, M. Walmsley, C. Wilson, A. Wootten

 

The proposed agenda was adopted.

The minutes of the teleconference held on 23 August were accepted. The minutes of the Santiago face-to-face meeting held on 11-12 September were also accepted, following one revision to item 2 proposed by T. Hasegawa: the end of the 4th sentence should read "….but approval of the overall construction budget could be delayed by 1-2 years." (the same correction was to be made in the ASAC report).

 

  1. Update on three-way project; Results of Abingdon face-to-face meeting

    2. R. Brown reported on the E-AEC meeting held at Abingdon concerning planning for the 3-way project. It was very productive and satisfactory; the result is a good 3-way sharing of the project and division of work, keeping the end-date fixed, and flexibility with respect to any delays in the approval process in Japan. The project, including the proposed enhancements, fits within the –10% budget envelope. Three receiver bands are assigned to each partner: Japan (bands 1, 4, 10), Europe (bands 7, 9, and WVR), and U.S. (bands 3, 6, 8). These assignments cover the responsibility for producing the receiver cartridges – the components can come from anywhere. N. Evans asked about incentives, and R. Brown replied that, on the basis of discussions with team leaders, it appeared that there was already adequate incentive for the receiver builders. The report of this E-AEC meeting will be presented to the E-ACC, and then made more widely available.

     

  2. Report on Cryostat, Photonics, Front End meetings

Other meetings at Abingdon concerned cryogenics, photonics, optics and mixers. R. Kurz reported that there was good progress in all of these areas: the cryogenics design, agreement on the optics design, progress on photonics possibilities (with decisions due in late 2002), and good progress and cooperation on the mixers.

 

  1. The ASAC report including the Operations Appendix, Enhancements Summary and ACA Simulations

The draft report from the Santiago meeting, coordinated by E. van Dishoeck, was very well received, as were the Operations document and the Enhancements document. A number of suggestions for minor changes by various people will be incorporated. Final comments are to be sent to E. van Dishoeck by the end of Oct. 11 (report) and Oct. 12 (enhancements document). The final versions will be available on the morning of Monday Oct. 15. N. Evans said that the number of recommendations listed in the Operations document had been reduced for simplicity.

 

 

4. Next teleconference

The next ASAC teleconference will take place on Wednesday 7 November at 14:30 UT.