[mmaimcal] FYI: Biweekly Calendar of the ALMA Project at NRAO
Al Wootten
awootten at nrao.edu
Tue Apr 1 11:44:23 EDT 2008
Folks,
Contributions, comments, criticisms?
Thanks,
Al
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!
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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!
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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 Loge 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."
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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
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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
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DAILY CALENDAR (Times EDT/EST ) see
https://wikio.nrao.edu/bin/view/ALMA/AlmaCalendar
****************************** 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 13UT ALMA Production Review Workshop Netmeeting
Apr 1-4 ALMA Board Meeting Chile
Apr 7 OSF TB Acceptance Ceremony OSF
******************************* 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
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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
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Past issues are available at
http://www.cv.nrao.edu/~awootten/mmaimcal/ALMACalendars.html
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