BIWEEKLY CALENDAR OF THE ALMA PROJECT at NRAO 9 April 2007 - 23 April 2007 ******************************** THIS FORTNIGHT*************************** The pedestal assembly for the first VertexRSI production telescope arrived in Antafagasta and will be trucked to the OSF to join the other elements of the telescope, including the backup structure and the invar cone which joins them. Photographs may be found in the ALMA gallery (link below). ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Past issues of this Calendar may be viewed at http://www.cv.nrao.edu/~awootten/mmaimcal/ALMACalendars.html See also the JAO ALMA Calendar overview at: http://www.alma.cl/alma_project *************************************************************************** General Happenings Photos of activity may be found at: http://www.alma.nrao.edu/almanews/almagallery/index.html Sky: Venus shines brightly as the evening star in the west this month. Saturn rides high in the evening sky, and Jupiter and Mars highlight the morning sky. SCO: Design documents for the Santiago Central Office are in hand and are under review by Technical Evaluation Committee. During the last week of June the ALMA Board will meet in Santiago; the ALMA Management Advisory Committee (AMAC) will meet immediately thereafter with a focus on ALMA Product and Quality assurance. A Director's Review, a major project review, will be held in Chile in early September. AOS (Array Ops Site, 16570ft altitude): Road layout and antenna pad drawings have been distributed for ALMA review. The completion of the Technical Building leaves a focus of construction on the Transporter Hangar. Bids have been received and are being analyzed. Clarification meetings were held and award is imminent. The week of May 9 often had excellent weather; the last week suffered wetter conditions. OSF (Ops Support Facility, 9600ft altitude): There are 482 people working at the ALMA site. A meeting of the Chajnantor Working Group, comprised of representatives of observatories with an interest in the ALMA site, meets this week. ALMA Camp extension work started on April 02, 2007. All prefab modules are already on site, and erection is ongoing; first occupancy is expected in early May. Completion of the VertexRSI Site Erection Facility is expected May 10, 2007. ATF: Software upgrades installed and intense debugging continues. Holography tests have resumed, with acceptance tests anticipated on the Vertex antenna. Optical pointing will resume with the AEC antenna with a goal of acceptance in the coming fortnight. AOC: A purchase order for two Master Lasers was completed. The first pair of pre-production racks was populated and power was applied. CASA beta planning finalized. HIA: The second B3 (3mm) cartridge was shipped to the NA FEIC. Provisional Acceptance In-house (PAI) was successfully concluded for the third cartridge. Acceptance testing for the fourth cartridge is about to start. NTC (NRAO Technology Center): FE #1 (Ser. No. 2) chassis construction and wiring substantially completed; it has been mounted on the tilt table with a preproduction FESS. The origin of beam sidelobe for Band 6 was identified and eliminated. The fourth B7 (.85mm) was received at the NA FEIC, completing deliveries for preproduction integration there. A schedule for the final integration, acceptance tests and delivery of FE #1 to the ATF is under way. Measurements of the Band 3 beam pattern without and with the warm optics will begin April 23. Assembly and test of the 2-antenna correlator continues. Holography system #1 is undergoing testing at the ATF Vertex antenna. 78 GHz and 104 GHz feed horns for system #2 were received and will be measured at Green Bank this week. NAASC: Comments were received from the NSF panel reviewing the North American ALMA Operations Plan; the NAASC has completed its response to the comments. New version (v2.0) of ALMA Design Reference Science Plan (DRSP) will soon appear; this version includes use of enhanced features brought to ALMA by Japanese participation. Hales, Wootten revised ALMA Memo No. 475 and submitted it as a White Paper to the ExoPlanet Task Force of the US AAAC. A calendar of NAASC events may be found at: http://www.cv.nrao.edu/naasc/calendar/calendar.php A number of ALMA-related science discussions will occur during the next fortnight at the NAASC; see the listings below. Registration for the workshop 'Transformational Science with ALMA: Through Disks to Stars and Planets' to be held 22-24 June 2007 is under way: See http://www.cv.nrao.edu/naasc/disk07/ for schedule. ESO: The two prototype WVRs returned to OSO. A final report on the SMA field tests is still pending, it is expected before the end of this month. *************************************************************************** DAILY CALENDAR (Times EDT/EST ) see https://wikio.nrao.edu/bin/view/ALMA/AlmaCalendar Mon 9 Apr - Easter Monday, Europe 3:30PM: PSI/ATF telecon Tue 10 Apr - 10:30 AM-11:30 AM: JAO IPT Telecon Wed 11 Apr - 10:30AM: Science Software Requirements (SSR) telecon Thu 12 Apr - 10:00AM - Calibration Group telecon 4:00PM - Nick Scoville, Caltech Fri 13 Apr - Sat 14 Apr - Sun 15 Apr - Mon 16 Apr - Tue 17 Apr - 10:30 AM-11:30 AM: JAO IPT Telecon Wed 18 Apr - 10:30 am: Science IPT Telecon Thu 19 Apr - 9:30AM: ALMA Board telecon 4:00 pm: Lynn Matthews, CfA Fri 20 Apr - 4:00PM: Star Formation discussion group, NAASC. Sat 21 Apr - Sun 22 Apr - Mon 23 Apr - ****************************** UPCOMING EVENTS **************************** Apr 19 13:30 UT ALMA Board Telecon Apr 27 17:00 UT ANASAC Telecon May 2 16:00 UT NAASC telecon May 7-8 all day ASAC f2f meeting Tokyo May 14-16 all day FE optics CDR IRAM May 16 14:30 UT Science IPT telecon May 17 21:30 UT ALMA Board Telecon May 23 Software CDR5 Cville Jun 13-14 Nutator PDR Taipei Jun 27-28 ALMA Board Meeting Santiago Jun 29-30 AMAC f2f Meeting Santiago Sep 12-13 B6 CDR Cville ******************************* TECHNICAL NEWS *************************** *****************************ALSO OF INTEREST***************************** *************************************************************************** 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