NAASC Status and NSF Proposal Review & Recommendations

Carol LonsdaleHead, North American ALMA Science Center

ANASAC 13-14 Sept 2010

ALMAALMARecent NAASC Activities• Proposal to NSF: continued operations of ALMA FY2012-2015: March

• Miami AAS: “Preparing for ALMA” Session: May

• First Science Operations integrated test of software and procedures: May/June

• Tutorials, lectures, walkthroughs and Town Hall at NRAO Interferometry summer school, Socorro: June

• New organization structure, and team retreat: July

• Panel review of the NSF proposal: July

• Second integrated test of software and systems, end-to-end: through end September

• Three scientists, three Postdocs and one Data Analyst hired

ANASAC 13-14 Sept 2010

ALMAALMA

Hardware Maintenance

Software Maintenance

NAASC

AD for the NAASC: C LonsdaleNA ARC Manager: J HibbardProject Scientist: A WoottenBusiness Services: T Miller

User Support

C Brogan (A)

A EvansR FriesenD-C KimA KimballA LeroyH MedlinT RemijanS SchneeK ShethJ BraatzDAs 2-4Postdocs 5, 6

CASA

Non-CASA Subsystems

Front End

Back End

EPO(J Stoke)

Data Services

M Lacy

R IndebetouwD MehringerR PulliamDeveloper 2Sci 17

DevelopmentPrograms

A Wootten

LO & Photonics

Telescope Operations

Support

J Hibbard

E FomalontT HunterH LisztN MarcelinoSci 16J Mangum

CIS(D Halstead)

M HatzK SharpArch. Tech 2Db admin

Business/Admin Services

Comm.(M Adams)

NA ALMA OPERATIONS

ORGANIZATIONAL CHART

OPERATIONS PHASE

ALMAALMANear Term Activities• Software & procedures testing, including current end-to-end

test, led by JAO

• October Science Operations Readiness Review, Santiago

• Prepare for first Call for Proposals– Proposal call; support JAO– Website; training & outreach materials– Tutorials

ANASAC 13-14 Sept 2010

ALMAALMATutorials• NAASC is planning a 2-day Early Science Preparation Workshop,

to educate users on ES capabilities, the Observing Tool, the simulator and Splatalogue

• Catch-22: Date of Proposal Call uncertain until ORR is over – ES Decision Point is November 22– Do we schedule it for December, assuming CfP date is December

1? This will limit the timescale we will have for any adjustments to the tutorials, based on the ORR results

– Or schedule for February and risk it being irrelevant for the first CfP?

• ½ to full day tutorial in January after NAASC/NRC Workshop

• OT phase2 and CASA tutorials will follow later to prepare successful proposers for processing their data

ANASAC 13-14 Sept 2010

ALMAALMA

ANASAC 13-14 Sept 2010

Web site

6

http://science.nrao.edu/alma

• Premiered 2010 Jan 3 @ the AAS meeting in DC

• Central NAASC Webpage for User-Needs

7/16/2010

ALMAALMAALMA Primer, new edition

ANASAC 13-14 Sept 2010

ALMAALMA

ANASAC 13-14 Sept 2010

Simulations: ES vs 50 antennas

8

Simulation: 16 antennas; uniform weighting (L); natural weighting (R); uv-coverage

Simulation: 50 antennas; uniform weighting (L), natural weighting (R); uv-coverage

With low (u v) plane coverage, noise is patterned and difficult to distinguish from real structure

ALMAALMACasaguides.nrao.edu

ANASAC 13-14 Sept 2010

ALMAALMAAUI/NRAO Proposal to NSF for NA Share of ALMA Operations, FY2012-2015• Reviewed July, Santiago; committee report received last week• Context:

– Follow-on proposal from current 5-year award FY2007-2011– Renewal of award for 4 years through nominal steady-state

operations– NA ALMA Operations has 4 activities:

a. Share of core operations in Chileb. Core support in NA at the ARCc. Share of the development programd. Enhanced “beyond the ARC” user support and other functions

– a-c together are internationally agreed and form the ALMA Operations Plan; AOPvD (2007)

– NSF provided the Guidance Budget (GP) for the proposal, based on indexed AOP and subsequent considerations

– Above-guidance opportunity offered by NSF: termed Optimized Plan (OptP) by AUI/NRAO

ANASAC 13-14 Sept 2010

ALMAALMAAUI/NRAO Proposal to NSF for NA Share of ALMA Operations, FY2012-2015• NSF Charges to the review committee

– Effective plan for operation of ALMA within the guidance budget provided by NSF

– Operations model solidly justified. Risks – Are plans comprehensive. Opportunities for cost savings – Are the preparations appropriate and on track to support NA users in

Early Science and beyond– Organizational structure of staff appropriate. Integration of NAASC,

ARC and Chile operations – Full exploitation of operational synergies with other NRAO facilities – Appropriate EPO plan– Budget breakdown and distribution justified. Basis of budget estimates – Profile for ramp-up to steady state operations in 2015. Realistic

spending plan– Budget uncertainty and risks. Budget distribution between categories

a-d.– Advise NSF on relative priorities in OptP (above-guidance proposal)

ANASAC 13-14 Sept 2010

ALMAALMAKey elements of proposal

• AOP is under revision: proposal used the Board-approved version D, 2007

• Proposal adhered to guidance budget (GP), and also proposed an above–guidance plan (OptP)

• GP followed basic staffing and operations plan in first proposal but costs are higher than estimated in 2007:1. Some labor costs have increased2. 2007 proposal had no user / student support (it relied on a

proposed user grants-with-time program) $0.9m3. Increases in core ARC functions by trilateral agreement when the

Science Operations Implementation Plans were developed, 2009. 2 FTE

4. Under-scopes in first proposal• Addition of Broadening Impact initiatives 1.75 FTE• Additional effort for data re-processing 2 FTEs• Additional effort for community outreach 1 FTE

ANASAC 13-14 Sept 2010

ALMAALMAKey elements of the proposal• To accommodate the increased costs the proposal utilized

$1.8m that NSF had allocated for FY2012 onward as a contingency for uncertain costs of power in Chile

• This was done because the ALMA Board has not approved additional allocations of funds for site power, pending international agreement and the completion of the AOP update to Version E

• The OPTIMIZED Plan (above-guidance proposal) added:– A user grants-with-time program– Increased staffing for EPO, from 4 in the GP to 9 FTEs)– $1.8m contingency for power cost increases re-instated– Additional data and visitor services

ANASAC 13-14 Sept 2010

ALMAALMAOverall Findings & Recommendations• Overall positive review; recommended funding at GP level

• Proposal does present a plan for effective operation of ALMA; NAASC team is “ready and able to meet the challenges and excel”

• Concern about novice users and user expectations: under promise and over deliver

• Certain OptP elements should be moved to GP, implying dropping/deferring other GP elements

• The $1.8m power contingency money should not be used to alleviate the cost increases in Science Operations, but should be held until AOPvE is completed and adopted by the Board

• Inadequate support for data processing and image delivery in early years is a major risk

• ALMA user-grants-with time funding not supported

– NSF recently released announcement: ALMA-related funding proposals

ANASAC 13-14 Sept 2010

ALMAALMAComments regarding users and user support• Concern that novices will not be able to deal with pipeline

images, and that community expectations may be too high for a generalized imaging pipeline

• Challenge to include novice users in ES because they may need unrealistic levels of support from NAASC

• It is likely that success of ES, and system performance optimization, depends critically on early involvement and support of experience users

• Commitment to user support from NAASC is evident, and is extremely well justified given its important for the success of ALMA in NA, in particular novice and non-expert users

ANASAC 13-14 Sept 2010

ALMAALMARecommendations

• Establish and communicate conservative, planned ES capabilities and array scheduling strategies as soon as possible in order to create realistic user and staff expectations

• Active measures should be taken to ensure that expert users are well-integrated into ES

• Expert user community assistance with data processing and analysis, CASA development, and feedback on user support tools should be enabled and exploited

• Include data re-processing for users within the GP, even if other services are reduced; Indeed, data re-processing seems higher priority for early ALMA science success than other items in the GP:

– Reduce community outreach (tutorials and workshops), or – Phase outreach in more slowly. – Delay outreach to non-experts until after Early Science

ANASAC 13-14 Sept 2010

ALMAALMABudget implications• The GP costs have increased, in particular because the user

community program was not included in the guidance budget profile

• The $1.8m power contingency was therefore used in the proposed budget to offset these increases

• The overall effort now faces cuts:– The $1.8m is to be held pending ratification of AOPvE– We are requested to move some elements of the OptP

into GP– The community support program is therefore at risk:

$0.9m

ANASAC 13-14 Sept 2010

ALMAALMACharge to ANASAC• What balance should NAASC seek between “managing the

expectations of the user community” for Early Science (ES) and raising interest in ALMA amongst non-expert users?

• How should NAASC define the scope of data re-processing capabilities, which the panel has put at a high priority? What services can NAASC cut to accommodate increased data processing services and advanced algorithm development?

ANASAC 13-14 Sept 2010

www.almaobservatory.org

The Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), an international astronomy facility, is a partnership among Europe, North America and East Asia in cooperation with the Republic of Chile. ALMA is funded in Europe by the European Organization for Astronomical Research in the Southern Hemisphere (ESO), in North America by the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) in cooperation with the National Research Council of Canada (NRC) and the National Science Council of Taiwan (NSC) and in Japan by the National Institutes of Natural Sciences (NINS) in cooperation with the Academia Sinica (AS) in Taiwan. ALMA construction and operations are led on behalf of Europe by ESO, on behalf of North America by the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO), which is managed by Associated Universities, Inc. (AUI) and on behalf of East Asia by the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan (NAOJ). The Joint ALMA Observatory (JAO) provides the unified leadership and management of the construction, commissioning and operation of ALMA.