Report to the CASCA Board of Directors May 1998 Joint Subcommittee on Space Astronomy Membership: JSSA Membership, with term of office is currently Laurent Drissen University Laval 1997-2000 Mark Halpern University British Columbia 1996-1999 Marshall McCall York University 1995-1998 Simon Morris Herzberg Institute of Astrophysics 1995-1998 Judith Pipher University of Rochester 1996-1999 Harvey Richer University of British Columbia 1997-2000 Russ Taylor (chair) University of Calgary 1995-1998 The terms of Russ Taylor, Simon Morris and Marshall McCall will end after the May 1998 AGM. LTSP III The main activity of the JSSA since December 1997 has been continued lobbying of the CSA for the space astronomy component of the Long Term Space Plane III submission. Russ Taylor has also served as chairman of the Space Astronomy working group for the LTSP III task force. Our proposal developed by the JSSA and a number of others was submitted to the CSA in October 1997, and included participation in the following missions. 1) The Next Generation Space Telescope 2) The FIRST/Planck Mission 3) ARISE/VSOP2 Space VLBI mission The cost to participate at a minimum acceptable level in these three missions is estimated at $80 M. The JSSA recommended to the CSA that a meeting take place at CSA office in Ottawa between CSA, NASA, HIA, University and Industry representatives to explore more fully potential Canadian participation in the NGST. The meeting was organized and chaired by Simon Lilly. Based on the successful outcome of that meeting and the subsequent recommendation on the JSSA, the CSA has initiated an NGST "program". CASCA board has endorsed a recommendation from the JSSA to establish a Canadian NGST Science Steering committee chaired by Simon Lilly. A announcement inviting expressions of interested to serve on the Steering committee was distributed via the CASCA email exploder in late March. A number of scientists have responded. The membership of that committee will be established at the upcoming JSSA meeting on 15 May. At the December Ottawa meeting, the Director General for Space Science announced that $60 M had been allocated to space astronomy for LTSP III. The LTSP III submission will be divided into four areas 1) Space Communications 2) Sustainable Earth 3) Human Presence in Space 4) Space Exploration Space Exploration is further divided into two areas Space Astronomy with an allocation of $60 M and Planetary Exploration with an allocation of $110 M. In January a Space Exploration Planning Group was formed to advise the CSA on the next phase of the LTSP III development. Russ Taylor represented Space Astronomy on this group and the first meeting was held on February 17. At that meeting our position was that the allocations to Space Astronomy and Planetary Exploration was out of balance and that we continue to request the CSA to include all three space astronomy programs at a level of at least $80 M. To further develop the case for participation in FIRST/Planck, another meeting was organized at the CSA office in Ottawa on 29 April. The meeting involved representation from the CSA, the FIRST/Planck science payload teams, NASA, HIA, Canadian universities and industry. Science representations were made by Taylor, Wilson, Bond and Davis. This meeting was also very successful. The CSA is now prepared to proceed with detailed discussions with ESA. Russ Taylor is in the process of setting up a meeting between the CSA and ESA officials in early June. At the 29 April meeting, CSA officials communicated informally that they are now prepared to include all three space astronomy missions in the LTSP III submission at the level of funding requested. This process, begun in May 1997 at the "Vancouver" meeting, has thus reached a satisfactory state. All in all, it has been an extremely busy but productive year for the JSSA. The current state of the LTSP III space astronomy proposal will be reviewed at the upcoming JSSA meeting and specific recommendations on the next steps will be communicated to the CSA. Status of Current missions: Space VLBI In June 1997, the first fringes were found from space VLBI data acquired by the VSOP mission. Regular operations started in December, following an extended ``in-orbit check-out'' phase, during which a large number of technical problems were worked out. In particular the Canadian correlator system was instrumental in assisting the DSN tracking stations come on line. The mission as a whole is now working well, and has suffered only one major set-back, the loss of 22 GHz operation on the spacecraft. This has meant a reduction of resolution from what was anticipated. A paper describing the mission and some of the initial results has been submitted to the journal Science. The Canadian Correlation Centre at DRAO is now in full production mode. Data tapes arrive from the network of twelve Ground Radio Telescopes and five Tracking Stations around the world that are equipped with S2 recording systems and regularly contribute observations. About two-thirds of the observations that are correlated at DRAO form part of the VSOP Survey project. The rest are General Observing Time (GOT), awarded by periodic VSOP competitions. After correlation, these data are transferred to the Radio Astronomy Laboratory at University of Calgary where they are calibrated and images are formed. Since regular operations began, about ten observations are correlated each month. Some observations involve as many as eight stations -- a challenge for the six-station Canadian correlator. During 1997, the correlator was upgraded with digital filters for high-resolution spectral-line observations, and with a facility for very fast ``dump rates''. The latter improvement is used for pulsar observations, sometimes in conjunction with the high-resolution filters. Statistics for S2 observations since May, 1997: 38 Observations ``released''. 16 correlated, but awaiting delayed VLBI tape shipments or critical ancillary data. 7 abandoned 5 recently observed and awaiting tapes. 66 Total There are 35 VSOP Survey and 25 GOT observations in this list. Correlator load is expected to increase because the correlator in Japan is not fully operational, and has acquired a back-log. The Canadian correlator will have to pick up part of this back-log, as well as process a larger number of observations in the future. Correlated Survey observations are released to the University of Calgary after undergoing a first level of data quality analysis, where they are processed into images or source models. GOT observations are released to the PI, although the data may also be sent to Calgary for imaging in situations where the mission requires feedback on data quality. The VSOP satellite, HALCA, remains in a stable state, although there have been a number of ``SOS'' situations over the past year which have caused it to go into ``safe hold''. This causes no permanent harm, but there is a loss of consumables (gas) when this happens. It has proved difficult to ``steer'' the satellite into unfavourable angles relative to the sun because of large build-ups of momentum in the momentum wheels. This has tended to hamper the efficiency of the mission, although no observations have actually been lost or unscheduled as a result. As the technical component of the correlator and the mission in general has reached a stable state, more emphasis will be placed on operational throughput and on science. To this end the correlation center is now headed by a scientist (Dr. Sean Dougherty), and another person will be hired for correlator operations. Canadian science interest rests mainly with the Survey results. This survey, which will observe a flux limit sample of about 300 sources, will provide a statistical picture of the distribution of properties of AGN's containing high brightness temperature sources. The Radio Astronomy Laboratory at Calgary and the ISAS headquarters in Japan have been selected as the chief sites for the processing and analysis of the mission Survey project. There have been several proposals submitted from Canadian scientists to the latest call for proposals. Several pulsar observations which require specialized processing will have Canadian collaborators. Canadian collaborators will also be part of a special ``deep'' survey involving the Arecibo telescope which has been equipped with Canadian VLBI equipment. This deep survey project samples a low flux density population of AGN and will thus extend the mission Survey project, allowing us to examine the active nuclei properties over a larger class of sources and a broad range of redshift. The Canadian correlator is partially funded by Natural Resources Canada (NRCan) for use in geodesy. Geodetic VLBI observations will be commencing in Penticton in 1998, using a new portable VLBI antenna that was installed at DRAO in December 1997. This antenna will visit each year a number of ``fiducial'' sites across Canada to establish an accurate reference grid for geodetic measurements. A finer grid is maintained using GPS satellites. The accurate positions of these sites will be used to refine GPS satellite orbits, and to contribute data on the Earth's polar motions. FUSE Project: Launch has been delayed to March 1999 due to delays in integration of the hardware, and interference with Mars launches over the year-end. All hardware is now delivered with the exception of the Canadian FES cameras, which are late and not fully tested yet. DAO has provided extensive support to the hardware contractors over the past months. Science: the PI program has been fully defined with participation by Hutchings, Morton, and Fullerton. The first round of proposals were due on May 8, and during the coming week Hutchings will participate in forming the peer review panels, including Canadian members. The total number of Canadian proposals will be known at that time. Operations support: Fullerton has been a valued member of the JHU team since Oct 1997, and reports regularly to Hutchings, UVIC, and CSA. A second support contract has made little progress since being proposed in November 1997. This post will also involve work on the science data from the PI program, after providing initial operations support. NSERC fellowship is being considered as an alternative ODIN In the last year, Canadian Odin scientists (Kwok, Avery, Bernath, Feldman, Fich, Mitchell, and Wilson) all participated in the development of the Odin observing program, and in some cases played a major role as chairmen of the topical teams. A Odin astronomy workshop, attended by astronomers from both Sweden and France, was held in October 1997 in Calgary to finalize the observing program. Canada also participated in the construction of the scientific payload through the work of Steve Torchinsky (based in Chalmers Technical University in Sweden). Canadian contributions include all facets of the project, from design through to integration and testing of the system components and of the overall system. Specifically, Torchinsky has been involved in the optics and mechanical design, subsystem integration, and beam measurements. Scheduling software is being developed in Calgary by Kevin Volk. Sun Kwok continues to serve as the Canadian astronomy representative in the Odin International Science Team. As a team member, he participates in the formulation of policies and the monitoring of progress of the Odin mission. In the past year, he attended science team meetings in Toulouse (June 1997), Calgary (October 1997), and Stockholm (Jan 1998). He has visited the Chalmers Technical University in Gothenburg, Sweden to inspect the progress of the submillimeter receivers and to CNES, Toulouse to examine the construction of the spacecraft. He also spent one month at the Smithsonian astrophysical Observatory in Cambridge, MA in the fall of 1997 to interact with the SWAS team, in particular with PI Gary Melnick. Due in part to the problems with the digital autocorrelator, launch is now delayed to late 1998 or even early 1999. The satellite will be launched on a START-1 rocket from Svobodny. Russ Taylor for the JSSA May 11, 1998.