LSST E-News |
Project Office Update
Two snowstorms in June brought almost 3 ft of snowfall to Cerro Pachón, more than had been seen in 10 to 15 years. The snow-drifted road shown here was one the LSST Board of Directors walked on in April during their visit to the LSST site. Photographer Jeff Barr explains “The picture is taken at the southwest end of the main hill where the access road curves around the end before the final slope up to the top.”
Major steps forward have taken place this quarter, including the scheduling by the National Science Foundation (NSF) of the LSST Preliminary Design Review (PDR) for the week of August 29th in Tucson. The NSF PDR is a major assessment point on the path to receiving construction funding from NSF. This week-long review of the project will assess the robustness of the technical design and completeness of the budget and construction planning.
To get us ready for that review, the LSST Board of Directors has assembled an external, non-advocate review panel to assess the readiness of the LSST Project for the NSF PDR. At the three-day, mid-July review, the panel is requested to provide the LSST Board with an exit briefing that contains: an overall summary of panel assessment of project readiness, a commented list of significant problems revealed, and high-priority recommendations.
On the Department of Energy (DOE) -side of the equation, we’re happy to announce that the DOE approved a key milestone in development of the LSST camera: CD-0. This “Critical Decision Zero” for a Stage IV Ground-Based Dark Energy experiment formally establishes the need for such a project as part of the agency’s mission, designates a stream of funding for it, and names the LSST as the first option for meeting that mission need. For more information:
https://news.slac.stanford.edu/features/lsst-camera-passes-first-funding-milestone-0.
Under the leadership of LSST System Scientist Željko Ivezić, a significantly updated version of the LSST overview paper is now available as http://arxiv.org/abs/0805.2366 and linked to http://www.lsst.org/overview
Snow on Pachón, as seen in this June 6th webcam image.
We welcome two new members to the LSST team: Data Management Project Scientist Mario Jurić and Document Specialist Robert McKercher. Mario has a strong data management background and has done extensive work with SDSS and Pan-STARRS data. He will start in January. Rob is already on the job in the LSST Project Office and has a background in both journalism and digital library science, making him the perfect wrangler for our large and growing pile of documentation.
While temperatures exceed 110°F in Arizona, it’s winter in Chile, as evidenced in these beautiful pictures of the first snow at CTIO. The LSST webcams remain operational for the time being, even though site preparation is nearly complete on Cerro Pachón as we go to press. Images are updated every minute at http://www.lsst.org/lsst/webcam.
Written by Suzanne Jacoby
LSST is a public-private partnership. Funding for design and development activity comes from the National Science Foundation, private donations, grants to universities, and in-kind support at Department of Energy laboratories and other LSSTC Institutional Members:
Adler Planetarium; Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL); California Institute of Technology; Carnegie Mellon University; Chile; Cornell University; Drexel University; Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory; George Mason University; Google, Inc.; Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics; Institut de Physique Nucléaire et de Physique des Particules (IN2P3); Johns Hopkins University; Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology (KIPAC) – Stanford University; Las Cumbres Observatory Global Telescope Network, Inc.; Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL); Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL); National Optical Astronomy Observatory; Princeton University; Purdue University; Research Corporation for Science Advancement; Rutgers University; SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory; Space Telescope Science Institute; Texas A & M University; The Pennsylvania State University; The University of Arizona; University of California at Davis; University of California at Irvine; University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; University of Michigan; University of Pennsylvania; University of Pittsburgh; University of Washington; Vanderbilt University
LSST E-News Team:
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LSST E-News is a free email publication of the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope Project. It is for informational purposes only, and the information is subject to change without notice.
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