PROJECT NEWS

An executive summary of the LSST Monthly Technical Progress Report for August has been submitted to the NSF and posted on our public website: http://lsst.org/news/monthly-progress-updates

Telescope and Site team members held a Final Design Review for the Hexapod and Rotator at Moog CSA in Mountain View, CA, earlier this week. The emphasis was on the software, control system, mechanical design and schedule; project response to the vendor is in progress.

Key Project Personnel have been asked to extend their travel to the February Joint Technical Meeting to accommodate a half-day retreat for a discussion of Workplace Culture and the implementation of trusted reporting systems including trained ombudspersons.

Steve Kahn, Victor Krabbendam, and Beth Willman circulated an LSST Project statement on sexual harassment.

UPCOMING MEETINGS with LSST INVOLVEMENT:

• November 12, 2015: LSST Workshop, noon @ 47th DPS Meeting, National Harbor, MD
• November 19-20, 2015: LSST Observing Strategy Retreat, Tucson, AZ
• December 3-4, 2015: NSF Status Review
• January 7, 2016: LSST Town Hall, 6:30pm @AAS 227, Kissimmee, FL            
• February 22-24, 2016: LSST Joint Technical Meeting, Santa Cruz, CA
• March 8-10, 2016: 2nd Annual US-Chile Education Summit, Chile
• April 11-13, 2016: LSSTC Board Meeting in Washington, DC.
• May 24-26, 2016: XLDB 2016 Conference and Workshop, SLAC
• June 28-July 1, 2016: SPIE Astronomical Telescopes & Instrumentation, Edinburgh, Scotland
• August 15-19, 2016: LSST 2016 Project & Science Workshop

PROJECT NEWS

AURA/LSST is actively soliciting applications for two new positions [1] a postdoctoral research assistant to work with Beth Willman on pre-cursor LSST science investigations: http://ls.st/hgt  and [2] a Training Coordinator.  In addition, recruitment for the EPO Manager has been extended another month.   LSST positions at all sites can be found at www.lsst.org/hiring.

The Data Management team held a successful Boot Camp earlier this week for team members distributed across three locations:  Tucson, Princeton, and University of Washington.  Agenda and presentations can be found on community.lsst.org; video will follow.

The Telescope & Site team is attending a formal design review for the secondary mirror taking place at Harris (formerly Exelis) in Rochester, NY this week.  The purpose of this review is to assess the final design and readiness of the M2 mirror cell assembly, its technical scope, schedule, management, risk and environment, safety, and health (ESH) concerns. 

The Camera team completed a success Test-Stand Readiness Review at BNL last week, providing assurance the test stands and procedures used for acceptance and performance verification of the CCDs are ready for use on production hardware, and consistent with safety and quality assurance processes.

LSST simulation data are now available through public website.  Those interested will find CatSim, OpSim, PhoSim, ImSim, GalSim, MAF, and AlertSim datasets and documentation starting at http://lsst.org/scientists/simulations

UPCOMING MEETINGS with LSST INVOLVEMENT:

• October 9-10, 2015: LSSTC Board Meeting, Tucson, AZ
• November 12, 2015: LSST Workshop, noon @ 47th DPS Meeting, National Harbor, MD
• November 19-20, 2015:LSST Observing Strategy Retreat, Tucson, AZ
• December 3-4, 2015: NSF Status Review
• January 7, 2016: LSST Town Hall, 6:30pm @AAS 227, Kissimmee, FL            
• February 22-24, 2016: LSST Joint Technical Meeting, Santa Cruz, CA
• March 8-10, 2016: 2nd Annual US-Chile Education Summit, Chile
• May 24-26, 2016: XLDB 2016 Conference and Workshop, SLAC
• June 28-July 1, 2016: SPIE Astronomical Telescopes & Instrumentation, Edinburgh, Scotland
• August 15-19, 2016: LSST 2016 Project & Science Workshop

LSST IN THE NEWS:

• Citizen Scientists Published (Space Warps Project), Symmetry, September 21, 2015
• Future Telescopes, September 28, 2015, BBC Video
• BNL engineer Veljko Radeka honored by the American Physical Society: http://ls.st/pvg

• BNL engineer Veljko Radeka honored by the American Physical Society: http://ls.st/pvg

UPDATE: EARTHQUAKE IN CHILE

• LSST construction activities on Cerro Pachón have returned to normal following the recent earthquake. The concrete batch plant is back in operation and the 70-ton crane is on the summit, placing steel frames at the corners of the facilities building.  See image on FaceBook.

PROJECT OFFICE NEWS

• B. Willman traveled to New Haven to speak to the AURA Board of Directors about preparing the community to conduct LSST science, and traveled to Monterey to present a talk at the GMT Community Workshop about "LSST - A Discovery Machine for ELT Era Science".  See Beth’s GMT slides.
• S. Kahn gave the AURA Board an update on LSST construction progress; work on the Operations Governance Plan continues.  
• Z. Ivezic, chair of the Project Science Team, reports that last week’s meeting included these discussion topics:
  • A planned “clarification” update to the Science Requirements Document
  • Development of a System-wide parameters database coordinated among all subsystems
  • A policy for open access to commissioning data

PROJECT SUBSYSTEM NEWS

Camera: The Filter Coating procurement review was executed in preparation for release of RFP by LLNL.

Data Management: Version 11.0 of the LSST Stack (aka Summer 2015) is available at http://ls.st/oan.

Telescope & Site: In today’s project blog posting B. Gressler writes about this week’s Preliminary Design Review of the Telescope Mount Assembly in Spain. 

Systems Engineering: The monthly Risk Management Meeting reviewed risks and opportunities in the EPO and Project Management Office subsystems.     

SAVE THE DATE:

October 1-2, 2015: Sensor Test Stand Readiness Review, Brookhaven National Lab
October 8-9, 2015: LSSTC Board Meeting, Tucson, AZ
November 12, 2015: LSST Workshop @ 47th DPS Meeting, National Harbor, MD
November 19-20, 2015: LSST Observing Strategy Retreat, Tucson, AZ
December 3-4, 2015: NSF Status Review
January 7, 2016: LSST Town Hall @AAS 227, Kissammee, FL
February 22 – 24, 2016: LSST Joint Technical Meeting, Santa Cruz, CA   

• Future Telescopes, September 28, 2015, BBC Video

UPDATE: EARTHQUAKE IN CHILE

Damage to LSST was minimal from last week’s earthquake, including no injuries to LSST personnel, as described in our 9/18/15 Facebook posting: https://www.facebook.com/myLSST.  LSST Site Manager Eduardo Serrano has since informed us that the concrete plant has been leveled and the road to the summit is now open; the 70-ton crane is on site.  Besalco's surveyors are doing a General Survey of all reference points used for construction post-earthquake, work that will take a few more days to complete.

PROJECT OFFICE NEWS

• Beth Willman visited LSST Corporation Member Institution Texas A&M this week to talk about LSST and near-field cosmology.
• The Project Office has taken steps to ensure that LSST can operate normally for a period of time in the event of an October 1 government shutdown and possible continuing resolution. 
• Managers participated in a two-day training session to determine if LSST is required to obtain export control licenses or exemptions for our data, parts, and components; a compliance plan suitable for LSST’s situation is being developed.
• Steve Kahn, Zeljko Ivezic, and Mario Juric made a visit to NASA Headquarters in Washington to discuss LSST’s capabilities for near earth object (NEO) detection and orbit characterization; see today’s blog posting for more information.
• Results of the Intra-Project Communications Survey, Workplace Culture notecards, and LSST2015 Exit Survey have been shared with LSST team members and posted on the meeting website.

PROJECT SUBSYSTEM NEWS

Camera: The recent wavefront sensor review went well as did the Ball Aerospace Final Design Review for the L1-L2 Lens Assembly.
Data Management: A series of “Boot Camps” are starting up for new DM hires; dates are October 5 - 7 and the venues are Princeton, University of Washington, and LSST Tucson.  All sessions will be recorded for broader distribution at a later time.
Telescope & Site: Several members of the T&S team will be in Madrid, Spain next week for a Preliminary Design Review with the Telescope Mount Assembly vendor GHESA Ingeniería y Tecnología.
Systems Engineering: Four requests were approved at this week’s Change Control Board meeting including placement of the Operations Simulation Requirements under formal change control.
Education & Public Outreach: The EPO Manager position has been rescoped to emphasize the technical nature of the position and is now posted on lsst.org/hiring.org. 

LSST CORPORATION NEWS

The LSST Corporation will have its annual face-to-face meetings of the Executive Board and the Board of Directors in Tucson at the Westward Look on October 8-9, 2015. 

The LSST Corporation is supporting an Enabling Science workshop entitled Astro Hack Week 2015 to be held at New York University September 28-October 2.  This week-long event is focused on astrostatistics and data-intensive astronomy. 

SCIENCE COLLABORATION NEWS

The chairs of the LSST Science Collaborations met during the LSST2015 meeting in Bremerton in mid-August, to discuss the activities of each science collaboration, roadmap plans, and scientific challenges ahead.  We are working to give each science collaboration a web presence; many of them already have websites in place. 

The LSST Corporation is supporting a variety of meetings and workshops of the science collaborations, under its Enabling Science initiative.

SCIENCE ADVISORY COMMITTEE NEWS

The LSST Science Advisory Committee meets monthly, and posts the minutes of its meetings to its website.  Its members cover the full gamut of LSST science themes, from the solar system to dark energy, and has the responsibility to communicate the interests and concerns of the science community to the LSST Project Office.   

Recent topics of discussion include mechanisms for making decisions on the LSST cadence, best practices in communication between the LSST Project and the scientific community, and understanding the detailed nature of Level 1 and Level 2 data releases.

SAVE THE DATE:

November 8-13, 2015: 47th DPS Meeting
January 4-8, 2016: AAS 227, Kissammee, FL                
February 22 – 24, 2016: LSST Joint Technical Meeting, Santa Cruz, CA
Week of August 15, 2016: LSST2016, Tucson, AZ