The past three years during which I have been chair of JCSA (formerly JSSA) have been busy, interesting, and challenging to say the least! I thank the JCSA members (P. Dewdney, M. Fich, J. Matthews, A. Moffat, C. Robert this past year, and including N. Bartel, L. Drissen, and H. Richer in earlier years) for their insight, guidance, and perseverance. Many other individuals, as Canadian leads of various missions and members of subcommittees (see below), have been essential to progress. The many dedicated staff members of the Canadian Space Agency (I single out D. Kendall, Director, Science Program Development, Space and Atmospheric Sciences Space Science Program, who has been my chief contact) are to be commended for their steadfast and strong support of Space Astronomy. K. Wilson and S. Zohar have provided an effective interface with NSERC and have helped establish a joint program with CSA to support the science activities of the missions. Personnel in HIA also play important roles in supporting and advancing space astronomy; it has been a pleasure to work in the JCSA with them (I highlight J. Hutchings) and their leaders, J. Hesser and S. Lilly. Finally, JCSA activity is on behalf of the CASCA community and JCSA has appreciated the input and advice of M. DeRobertis, G. Harris, and R. Taylor.
Together we have seen the success and maturation of Canada’s first involvement in space astronomy missions. Furthermore, the efforts of many mission scientists across the country and of leaders in Canada’s space industry, along with partners in CSA, have laid the basis for a remarkably diverse program in the coming decade. Many of the missions are international in scope, with ESA and NASA and Japan (and we hope India). Canadian space astronomy has benefited from close cooperation with the agencies and with the many scientists in the member countries.
JCSA and other lines of communication
JCSA gives advice to CASCA and CSA on a variety of CSA-implemented programs, described further below, including the following: (i) active missions: FUSE, ODIN, SVLBI (VSOP/HALCA); (ii) missions to be launched in the near future: BLAST, BOOMERANG, MOST; (iii) missions with approved funding and now in development: Herschel Space Observatory (HSO), NGST, PLANCK; (iv) missions seeking funding: UVIT. CSA also provides significant support of the CADC at HIA in Victoria.
Meetings of JCSA are open to any member of CASCA (some discussions of recommendations are held in camera). There are often specific invitees to address the issues of the day. The next meeting of the JCSA will be held on Saturday, December 7, 2002 in Ottawa. The following meeting will be held in conjunction with the 2003 CASCA meeting on Friday, 30 May, in Room 352, Physics Building, University of Waterloo. Contact A. Moffat, the new JCSA chair, if you wish to attend.
JCSA has requested that all missions work on having up to date web sites linked to CSA at http://www.space.gc.ca/csa_sectors/space_science/space_astronomy/default.asp. Some progress has been made, but it is still an area needing attention. Heightened visibility within CSA and for CSA are both important goals, not to mention timely information for the CASCA community.
There are JCSA subcommittees (steering committees) for many of the missions, to take advantage of more specialized knowledge and involvement by those closest to building the experiments and extracting the science. We have spent some time with CASCA and CSA to develop a formal JCSA process for populating these subcommittees with the appropriate people. The lead person in each subcommittee/ for each mission sends JCSA a report for every JCSA meeting (twice annually), and is in communication with the JCSA chair and CSA directly as needed.
Later this year should be the first meeting of CSA’s long-awaited Service Line Advisory Group (SLAG) for Space Science. This is a strategic planning group looking at priorities across the various discipline areas. The chairpersons of the various discipline advisory groups, including JCSA, are expected to be members of this SLAG.
Funding
Considerable resources (in round numbers $10M per annum) are being expended by CSA (and NSERC, CFI, and universities) on the space astronomy program and our community needs to be proactive and vigilant to ensure that the maximum scientific benefit is achieved. Our community should also be continuing to seek new opportunities even as these new initiatives come on line, and be actively planning so that new resources will be there as they are needed.
The CSA will release a Concept Studies AO in late summer 2002 giving the community approximately 5 months to respond. The CSA is also planning to release an Advanced Studies AO in summer 2003.
The outlook for space science, including astronomy, is generally positive. Five broad criteria guide CSA’s new vision: scientific excellence, international partnerships, education and outreach (inspiring Canadians, encouraging youth to pursue Science and Technology (S&T) careers), industrial benefits, and support to other government departments.
Because of the overall tight budgets, there has not been sufficient support available from CSA for the science teams to enable their full participation with international colleagues in the various missions. Therefore, we are fortunate to have NSERC participating in the overall planning. There is an interim NSERC/CSA program to begin to address funding the science. Our community should also reflect on making optimal use of CFI programs where relevant.
Developments at CSA
Effective 1 July, S. Torchinsky has been appointed Program Scientist for Space Astronomy. This is a great appointment and will surely help D. Kendall with his many excellent efforts on our behalf.
B. Wetter, a supportive Director General of Space Science, retired in late November. The position of Director General, Space Science, has been advertised and the selection is currently being conducted. R. Colley, well known to us from his previous CSA position, has stepped in effectively as Acting DG in the interim.
The new President of CSA, M. Garneau, has decided to consolidate CSA activities at the headquarters in St. Hubert, south of Montreal, to be complete on or before 31 March, 2004. This will be disruptive to the people who currently support space astronomy, since they are mostly based in Ottawa, and it is likely that some individuals will not be able to make the transition. In the end, it ought to be beneficial to have Space Science closer to the "corridors of power."
Mission-by-Mission
BLAST (Balloon-borne Large Aperture Submillimeter Telescope; B. Netterfield). Very significant progress has been made in the construction of BLAST in the past year at UBC and UofT. Final integration of gondola and instrumentation will occur by late summer, with a test flight in spring 2003 and an LDB (long duration) flight later in the year. BLAST uses the HSO/SPIRE technology for its focal plane instrumentation.
BOOMERANG (that’s the CMB experiment; B. Netterfield) has been shipped to Antarctica for its next LDB flight in December 2002. Detecting polarization is a goal.
FUSE (Far-Ultraviolet Spectroscopic Explorer; J. Hutchings). A cycle 4 call for proposals will be issued this summer. Canadians are preparing to respond to this with several large proposals. FUSE suffered a failure of its main reaction wheels and went into safe mode in December 2001, but is now back in service, with somewhat greater restrictions on where it can point in the sky.
HSO/HIFI (Heterodyne spectrometer on the Herschel Space Observatory: M. Fich and S. Torchinsky). COMDEV has continued to advance the hardware contribution to the local oscillator source unit. A major international workshop in support of the Canadian HIFI collaboration will take place this summer (August 21-23, 2002) at the University of Waterloo (the meeting is called "Chemistry as a Diagnostic of Star Formation"). Torchinsky, the technical lead, is taking the CSA position but will still be involved in seeing our HIFI hardware contributions through to a successful completion.
HSO/SPIRE (the submillimeter camera on HSO; G. Davis). Similarly, COMDEV is advancing the cold shutter hardware. There is some uncertainty as to whether the shutter is now needed because of changes in the overall mission design. Nevertheless Canadian involvement in the exciting SPIRE science could be consolidated by other contributions, e.g., to the Instrument Control Centre. Davis is becoming Director of the JAC/JCMT and so is resigning his formal lead role for Canada in SPIRE (transition by late July).
MOST (Microvariability of stars – Canada’s first space telescope; J. Matthews). A few technical hitches have caused some delays but a launch in early 2003 is expected!
NGST (Next Generation Space Telescope; J. Hutchings). This major project is moving ahead although the launch has been delayed by one year to assist NASA with budgetary and schedule issues. The Canadian work on the FGS (fine guidance system) concept study is complete and a full report is being prepared by HIA and EMS. Canada is also co-operating at a 50% level on NIRCAM (near-infrared camera). The NIRCAM proposal review has been completed (a team led by M. Rieke, U. Arizona was selected). There were Canadian scientists and companies involved in all the competing proposals. In parallel a CASCA/CSA call for scientists to make up the full Canadian complement for the selected NIRCAM science team has been issued (decisions soon).
ODIN (submillimetre spectroscopy; S. Kwok). Current scientific programs include the mapping of H2O in several molecular clouds and comets, the first detection of the ground-state transition of ammonia (in rho Oph), and continued searches (with negative results; low upper limits) for molecular oxygen. The satellite has experienced some instrument problems since launch, but these are not crippling.
PLANCK (CMB all-sky surveyor; D. Scott). Under new arrangements, Canadians will have strong scientific contributions to both HFI and LFI (high and low frequency instruments) and a significant lead effort in the calibration of HFI (M. Halpern) and the QLA (quick look analysis, part of the overall pipeline; B. Netterfield).
SVLBI (space VLBI; S. Dougherty). The VSOP (Japanese HALCA satellite) survey project, Canada’s main scientific interest in the VSOP mission, will be completed by
February 2003 and the mission support will be phased out soon thereafter. Canada has been actively involved in planning for future missions, including VSOP-2 and I-ARISE, and future efforts would require support under the Advanced Studies program.
UVIT (Ultraviolet Imaging Telescope; J. Hutchings). Canadian participation through a financial and technical contribution to the detector system has been advanced by J. Hutchings and his steering committee. UVIT is a part of a $100M astronomical satellite (ASTROSAT) by India, involving also X-ray instruments to which Canada would have access, and so with so rich a Canadian legacy in CUVIT, one would hope that this would go ahead. UVIT was put forward by Space Sciences as a "new start" (a yearly possibility now in CSA) and was well reviewed on all counts. However, it is not yet above the bar to obtain funding, given other priorities.
COSPAR
The bi-annual Scientific Assembly of COSPAR will take place 14-18 October in Houston. I encourage our community to attend. Canada is still intending to bid for the 2006 Assembly, in Montreal. CSA, with input from all the stakeholders, prepares a bi-annual report to COSPAR on Space Science Activities in Canada. Due to budget limitations, the 2000-2001 report is likely to be a more scaled-down version than originally hoped for, possibly being only a CD-ROM version in English.