Instruments Division News
04/17/2008
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Welcome to our newest staff member:
o Parviz Ghavamian joined the COS+STIS team on March 31. Parviz is
located in the Bloomberg center at JHU.
Congratulations to Stefano Casertano, who was promoted to Observatory Scientist,
and to Roeland van der Marel, who was promoted to full Astronomer.
HST news:
o SM4 is now no earlier than Oct. 8, 2008, with slips of 1-2 more weeks
likely. Consequences of this 6-8 week delay:
We get some breathing room on SMOV preparations. The baseline
plan is to finish Phase IIs on schedule, but stretch out analysis
plans as needed.
Use the extra time this summer to get a head start on Instrument
Handbooks and ETC testing for Cycle 18.
Take vacation this summer!
SMOV will now overlap more with preparations for the Cycle 18
CP. We may slip the CP to mid May (from April), but keep the
proposal due date in July.
There will be a new request, at some time, for names for launch
tickets.
o WFC3 thermal vac 3 is nearly done. Science calibrations finished last
night! Thanks again to everyone who is helping with the round-the-clock
staffing and who helped make the test run so smoothly and successfully.
o The STUC met here last week, uneventfully. Recommendations included:
Agree with project that FGS repair should not be a core priority,
but on a par with STIS and ACS repair.
Agreed with recommendation of WFC3 team to not clean the
droplets off the UVIS detector.
JWST news:
o JWST successfully passed Mission PDR at the beginning of April, and the
Non-Advocate Review (NAR) of budget and schedule is this week.
o The review board raised several issues at PDR. A partial list includes: the
sunshade, I&T plans, and detector development and procurement.
The new Ombudsperson, Beth Spotts, started yesterday. She will be here once a
month, in Room S216C. I encourage you to please use Beth as a confidential resource
for any workplace (or personal) issues you might have. Confidentiality is strictly
protected in all cases (with limits on physical abuse or endangerment). Talk to Beth if
you have any questions.
The next INS lunch is next week, April 24, in the Boardroom from 12:00-1:30. If you
wish to help plan and host this event, please contact Danny Lennon, Norm Grogin, or
Dave Golimowski. Thanks!
o The WIT Team will host our lunch in May (location TBD).
o Volunteers to coordinate future events would be welcome!