Draft Minutes
Participants: C. Wilson, Chair, Bachiller, Blake, Cox, Crutcher, Evans, Guilloteau, Gurwell, Hasegawa, Ishiguro, Kurz, Mangum, Mardones, Richer, van den Bout, van Dishoeck, Walmsley, Wilner, Wootten, Yamamoto, Yun
The draft minutes of the August Teleconference were adopted pending
addition of an attendance list. Cox will provide his notes to aid in this.
The agenda for the meeting was approved.
1) Status Report
P. van den Bout reported that the status of the project with respect to
Chile was unchanged. He will travel to Chile later in the month to
meet with Chilean representatives. An amendment to the ESO Treaty
providing for ALMA operation in Chile is expected.
The JAO has toured ALMA worksites in Europe and the United States
promoting construction activities. In Grenoble, the JAO approved the
configuration proposal presented by Conway of the Science IPT. The
site requirements and transporter reviews will be held 22-24 October in
Tucson. The EACC meeting went well, with a proposal from Japan presented
and warmly received; a negotiating team was appointed to pursue details.
The bilateral treaty awaits U. S. State Department approval and may
be signed before the Santiago meeting.
van den Bout reported on discussions at the ACC meetings held in Garching
during September, on the form of the new ASAC. With five members per
side, Europe is thinking of a new ESAC of which the European ASAC members
form a subset. There may be a parallel broader NASAC for North America
of which the North American ASAC members are a subset; Evans reported
NRAO Director Fred Lo to be considering that. Cox noted that the ACC
had decided the new ASAC would have three observers from Japan.
Guilloteau reported on the configuration review. Conway had presented
array positions which were nearly what was needed. Holdaway is working to
define Y+ positions based upon these. A memo by Mel Wright and independent
simulations support the proposed compact configuration and the spiral
design out to 4km. The JAO supported the ideas of continuous reconfiguration,
sixty antenna configuration optimization, two compact configurations
(one for declinations between -55 and +20; another with eleven additional
pads for more extreme declinations). The exact movement strategy was still
being considered; including the two compact configurations there were 35
total configurations in the planned ALMA, excluding those (probably 7) for the
Y+ array). The largest configuration will be optimized for science.
Positions for a possible ACA were identified--adjacent to a quebrada to the
southeast downwind of the array. Conway is developing a complete report.
Wootten reported that the backup structure had been mounted on the
Vertex antenna, which was proceeding on a new schedule toward completion
in mid-November.
2) Report of the ASAC Face-to-face Meeting (Cox )
Pierre Cox reported on the ASAC report to the ACC. It has been massaged
into final form; the final iteration received few comments. Additional
comments are due by Friday 11 October as the report will be delivered to
the ACC on Monday 14 October. Guilloteau noted that the sensitivities in
the Early Science section were somewhat inconsistent, CARMA using lower
system temperatures than ALMA. Cox suggested using an equivalent value
for all sites. van Dishoeck noted that the tables included official
numbers, expectations for arrays under construction. An offline discussion
was suggested to determine the report's final content. Yamamoto reported
that the description of the Japanese enhancements was very satisfactory.
Richer brought up the software section of the report, offering to add
sentences on performance and scalability. He also noted that the
construction role of the Science IPT seemed to be rather weak and advocated
a short paragraph noting this. Wilson agreed.
(3)The next teleconference
After some discussion the next telecon was set for 1530 UT on 6 November 2002.