[mmaimcal] First Science Array Configurations Rev B.

[Al Wootten]

Dear Antonio and science ipt folks,

I have placed a draft revision of Conway's document on early 
configurations at
http://tinyurl.com/5omaqm
for discussion.  I'm very interested in hearing discussion of this draft 
plan for populating the array during early commissioning through early 
science.  I propose that we discuss this at next Tuesday's MMA Imcal 
meeting.

Clear skies,
Al

Abstract:
The initial complement of antennas available for science at the 
Chajnantor site (target date Q1, 2010) will consist of up to 15-16 12m 
antennas.  As a stepping-stone to this array, we propose initial arrays 
of 3-20 antennas that will be available for use for interferometry 
observations about a year earlier. This array will be used both for 
testing, commissioning and for the first astronomical validation 
observations. Such ‘first astronomy’ observations will be interesting in 
their own right, allowing high frequency observations on an excellent 
site and uniquely demonstrating submillimeter ~1km baselines on a 
millimeter interferometer. In addition such ‘first science’ observations 
will provide a stringent ‘end to end’ test of the array systems.

This document outlines first astronomical verification configurations 
using up to 20 antennas and the 151 foundations whose locations are 
described in document ALMA-90.02.00.00-006-A-SPE.  We also consider 
placement of the first antennas on the 22 foundations constructed for 
the ACA whose locations are described in ALMA-90.02.00.00-007-A-SPE.  As 
more antennas are delivered to the site configurations for antennas 
numbers between 21 and 50 will be required. These additional 
configuration plans are beyond the scope of this document and will be 
presented in a subsequent document or revision of this document.