BIWEEKLY CALENDAR OF THE ALMA PROJECT at NRAO 25 Feb 2008 - 10 Mar 2008 ******************************** THIS FORTNIGHT************************* The period of this issue covers the fifth anniversary of the 2003 February 23 signing of the Agreement concerning the Joint Construction and Operation of the Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA). The sixth year now entered will be the last year before commissioning observations will commence. In December, the U. S. Congress enacted the FY2008 budget, which provided funding for the seventh year of ALMA construction at the level requested by the National Science Foundation. In early February, the President requested funding for FY2009, the eigth year of this eleven year project. Happy Birthday ALMA! --------------------------------------------------------------------- Richard Prestage, Assistant Director for Green Bank Operations, has accepted an appointment as Head of Technical Services at the Joint ALMA Observatory. He will plan to start his new duties in early May in Santiago. Welcome to ALMA, Richard! ---------------------------------------------------------------------- There are now seven 12m antennas on the ALMA site with their backup structures and at least some surface panels installed. As they are accepted by the Project, they will be transferred from contractor areas. The antennas will be moved by one of the two transporters, capable of lifting antennas weighing 115 tons and placing them on foundations with a precision of millimeters. Both of these machines, weighing 130 tons each, embarked from the Scheuerle Fahrzeugfabrik GMBH factory early December and embarked on their journey to port at Heilbronn, Germany. These behemoths, named Otto and Lore at a ceremony last October, travel on 28 tires and extend 30 feet in width and 60 feet long; they are 18 feet high. They were transferred to a barge to continue the journey down the Neckar River past Heidelberg to the Rhine, then down the Rhine to Antwerp, Belgium. By Dec 11, they had arrived in Antwerp, where they were transferred to an ocean vessel that arrived in port at Mejillones, Chile 7 February. On 2008 February 14, they completed their journey to the ALMA operations base camp at 9600 ft elevation, where they were within sight of their intended cargo, the seven antennas now at the OSF, for the first time. After a few months of testing, they will move the first antenna accepted to an antenna foundation at the just-finished OSF TB for early antenna testing. Eventually these two well-traveled giants will move the antennas to the 16400 foot level at which ALMA observes, Each is powered by two 500 kW diesel engines; they will return antennas for periodic servicing to the OSF. "When completed in 2012, ALMA will be the largest and most capable imaging array of telescopes in the world," said Massimo Tarenghi, the ALMA Director. "The ALMA antenna transporters, which are unique technological jewels, beautifully illustrate how we are actively progressing towards this goal." --------------------------------------------------------------------- Past issues of this Calendar may be viewed at http://www.cv.nrao.edu/~awootten/mmaimcal/ALMACalendars.html *************************************************************************** General Happenings Photos of activity may be found at: http://www.alma.nrao.edu/almanews/almagallery/index.html Sky: A Total Eclipse of the Moon occurred 20 Feb. Clouds reportedly parted in Charlottesville for the event, a moderately bright eclipse with a pastel orange-red coloration. SCO: Call for Tender for the Santiago Central Office at Vitacura was released on 25 Feb 2008. Closing date is 07 April 2008. The Call for Tender for an overhead line from Calama to ALMA has been released. AOS (Array Ops Site, 16570ft altitude): Construction of the Transporter Hangar continues for about another month. The Altiplanic Winter is slowly subsiding, with several periods of 0.5mm of precipitable water vapor. OSF (Ops Support Facility, 9600ft altitude): ALMA Operations is now maintaining ALMA site roads. Partial (24 rooms) delivery of the extension to the ALMA Camp occurs during this period. Acceptance testing of Vertex Antenna No 1 continues. Vertex Antenna #2 panel installation is 90% complete. Electrical cabling is nearly complete; initial check out of servo system to begin week of 25 February. Vertex Antenna #3: backup structure (BUS) and pedestal are ready to be mated 26 February. Vertex Antenna #4 is en route to Chile. Antenna foundations have been completed at the Alcatel-EIE-Mann lay-down area. The first antenna is expected later in the year. The Two-Antenna Correlator has arrived from the NTC. Emerson working on holography, planning new holography tower location (visible from OSF). AOC: Fabio Biencat Marcher completed his stay in Socorro. ATF: Routine interferometry continues, with a focus on phase stability. There has also been a focus on producing ALMA Standard Data Model datasets in the archive. Science validation of manual ASDM production occurred 22-23 Feb. Scientists may now set up, observe a source, and use CASA to view the results. NTC (NRAO Technology Center): Provisional Acceptance Inhouse for 1.3mm (Band 6) cartridge SN07 was completed; SN04 was shipped to the East Asian Front End Integration Center in Taiwan. Testing of Tunable Filter Board (TFB) cards continues; meanwhile all cards required to complete the 3rd quadrant of the correlator have been delivered to the assembler. ASIAA: Nutator CDR successfully completed week of 2008 Jan 23. HIA: The cartridge body for the first production 3mm cartridge was received; all pre-production cartridges have completed testing. NAASC: Interviews were conducted for a CASA Developer position stationed at the NAASC. Testing continues in preparation for the CASA Beta patch 1, expected in mid-March. The NAASC hosted the international Science Operations IPT meeting in Charlottesville from February 26-27. This meeting brings together staff from the ALMA Regional Centers in East Asia, Europe and North America, and the Joint ALMA Observatory in Chile, with the goal of coordinating and prioritizing work towards successful ALMA operations. Work concentrated on developing the Operations implementation plans, and ALMA-wide hiring. This was the last meeting of the group lead by outgoing JAO Director Massimo Tarenghi. This group has been instrumental in developing the ALMA Operations Plan, which was successfully presented to an international review committee exactly a year ago to the day. Grueling day-long meetings were followed by pleasant evenings celebrating what has proven to be a most productive and enjoyable international collaboration. A calendar of NAASC events may be found at: http://www.cv.nrao.edu/naasc/calendar/calendar.php ****************************** UPCOMING EVENTS ************************* Feb 18-23 IAU Symp 251: Organic Chemistry in Space Hong Kong Feb 27 Band 10 PDR Mitaka Mar 14 ANASAC Telecon -- Mar 26-9 The Cosmic Agitator-B Fields in the Galaxy U. Ky Mar 26 13UTA LMA Production Review Workshop Netmeeting Apr 1 Optical Pointing Telescope PDR Tucson Apr 1-3 ALMA Board Meeting Chile ******************************* TECHNICAL NEWS ************************* Memo No. 576 has been posted. Title: RF Burnout Power of SIS Mixers Author: A.R. Kerr Abstract: The RF burnout power of Nb/Al-AlOx/Nb SIS mixers is estimated from measured DC burnout data. It is assumed that an SIS junction suffers permanent damage when it reaches a critical temperature which is the same for all junctions of that material type. The junction temperature depends on the power (RF or DC) dissipated in the junction and the thermal resistance between the junction and thermal ground. The burnout powers of some SIS receivers currently in use at millimeter-wave observatories are estimated . View a pdf version of ALMA Memo #576: http://www.alma.nrao.edu/memos/html-memos/alma576/memo576.pdf *****************************ALSO OF INTEREST*************************** The Allen Telescope Array is accepting proposals from the general user community for the second half of 2008. Proposals are due April 18, 2008 at 5pm PDT. A full set of instrument parameters and proposal forms is available at http://ral.berkeley.edu/ata/Proposal/Proposals.html ---------------------------------------------------------------------- *************************************************************************** Please send information for upcoming calendars by Friday evening of the preceding biweekly period to Jennifer Neighbours or Al Wootten via e-mail (jneighbo at nrao.edu or awootten at 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