20th IVS Directing Board meeting Summary notes Held at Dominion Radio Astrophysical Observatory, Penticton, BC, Canada September 13, 2008 Notes by DB, first version 090224 Attending: Arthur Niell, Chopo Ma, Oleg Titov, Kerry Kingham, Bill Petrachenko, Harald Schuh, Patrick Charlot, Alan Whitney, Hayo Hase, Axel Nothnagel, Xiuzhong Zhang, Ed Himwich, Kazuhiro Takashima, Dirk Behrend Teleconferenced in for the duration of the WG4 report: John Gipson (6.7) ACTIONS: 1. Welcome (Harald Schuh) Andrey Finkelstein and Ray Norris were excused. 2. Approval of agenda The board approved the agenda for the 20th DB meeting without changes. 3. Approval of notes of the 19th DB meeting (Harald Schuh) Requests for changes could be submitted by Sept 29, 2008. Pending such requests, the minutes of the 19th DB meeting were approved. [No requests were submitted; hence minutes are approved in version as of 080902.] 4. IVS DB Chair's Report (Harald Schuh) Activities since the last board meeting were reported. Correspondence: - Welcome letters to additional members of the VLBI2010 Committee (J. Wresnik, A. Pany, J. Gipson, Th. Hobiger, T. Nilsson, and A. Collioud). - E-mail reply to Mr. Mosab Hawarey (United Arab Emirates, UAE) on questions regarding a VLBI2010 station in the UAE. - E-mail reply to Dr. Vladimir Zharov (Moscow University) on questions regarding VLBI2010 stations in Russia. Patrick Charlot suggested to prepare a cost sheet for requests on VLBI2010. Publications: - Co-authored with Dirk Behrend the IVS contribution for the IERS Annual Report. - Co-authored with Dirk Behrend the IVS contribution for the IAU Commission 19 report. Meetings: - Various oral presentations about the IVS during a visit to Iran (Teheran, Isfahan, Shiraz). - Poster about IVS at AOGS, Busan, June 16-20 (presented by A. Nothnagel). - IAG Executive Committee meeting on April 19, 2008. 5. IVS CC Director’s report (Dirk Behrend) Activities since the last board meeting were: - Publication of April and August Newsletters - Publication of 2007 Annual Report - Publication of 2008 General Meeting proceedings under way. Handled together with A. Finkelstein the copyright complaint of G. Krasinsky. Proceedings in press. - Coordination of calls for proposals for Combination Centers and Analysis Centers. - Coordination of the CONT08 campaign. - Submissions to IAG Newsletter on CONT08 and proposal calls. - Maintenance of mailing lists and Web site. - Liaison with other services in the frame of GGOS and FAGS Activities for the next several months include: - Publication of December 2008 Newsletter. - Publication of 2008 Annual Report. - Editing of the V2C Interim Report. - Support the Directing Board elections. - Coordinate the Technical Operations Workshop 2009. - Continue GGOS and FAGS activities. - Coordinate next Directing Board meeting. 6. Reports of the Coordinators, WG and Committee Chairs 6.1 Observing Program Committee Chair short report (Dirk Behrend) Yasuhiro Koyama (NICT) had to resign from his OPC position and suggested Mamoru Sekido (NICT) as his successor. The Board approved the change in the OPC membership. Issues discussed in the period since the last board meeting were: - CONT08 - AuScope Operations - Japanese GARNET stations in IVS sessions - EARLY START versus CORSYNCH in sked: The recommended parameter settings were set to: EARLY START 0 sec CORSYNCH 3 sec CALIBRATION 10 sec - Gravity retardation R&D proposal: The OPC approved two R&D sessions to observe the rare event of close approaches of Jupiter and Saturn to compact radio sources. - Astrometric supersession in 2009 (see TOP 6.2) - Proposal of IVS support for TANAMI: The IVS will support the TANAMI (Tracking Active galactic Nuclei with Austral Milliarcsecond Interferometry) project. 6.2 Supersession The special astrometric observing session in support of the International Year of Astronomy (IYA2009) is tentatively scheduled for November 18, 2009. Almost thirty stations are foreseen to participate in this session. A Task Force was established consisting of Patrick Charlot (chair), Dirk Behrend (co-chair), Axel Nothnagel, Hayo Hase, and Oleg Titov. 6.3 Analysis Coordinator's short report (Axel Nothnagel) A. Nothnagel sent letters to A. Finkelstein (IAA) and K. Heki (Hokkaido University) requesting the provision of the domestic VLBI data of the Russian and Japanese networks, respectively. The thermal expansion parameters have been assembled in tables. A. Nothnagel submitted a Short Note to the Journal of Geodesy. Volker Tesmer left DGFI. His tasks are now fulfilled by Manuela Seitz (former Kruegel) and will soon be taken over by Robert Heinkelmann. There occured a 6 cm jump in the up-component in the time series for Seshan. The jump "down" was followed by a jump back up several months later. The cause of this behavior is not understood yet. 6.4 Network Coordinator’s extended report (Ed Himwich) Station status: - new station news: AuScope, New Zealand, India (currently no activity), Korea (NGII looking for different site to locate new antenna, new antenna probably two years away), Iran - new BBC drop order: - some stations are missing more than 2 BBCs (Mh, Zc, Nt) - some stations were not following the existing recommended drop order - order to drop bad BBCs is #6, #11, #7, #2 for 14 BBC experiments - nearly optimal - same for all currently used 14 BBC frequency sequences The reliability of the Russian stations has improved with Zelenchukskaya having still some failures. Badary has wider filters, but X1L and X8L are missing. Cryogenic problems at Fortaleza and Ny-Alesund have greatly improved. For the CONT08 campaign, E. Himwich assisted in the SATA disk allocation, manually managed the cable wrap at day changes (due to minimized break times between days), and helped in organizing the staggered station system check times. The CONT08 tests were an expanded version of the CONT05 tests with new Mark 5 tests and automated acquisition and analysis. The tests revealed that Zc could not record 32 track mode; this was recovered by using 64 track mode for Zc only. Future plans: Near term: - station monitoring and support - phase cal extraction at Mark IV decoder stations: expand to Mark 5B and Mark 5C recorders - DBE and DBBC: control and calibration data - Multiple Mark 5 recorders - Mark 5C support - Extend antenna gain calibration to S/X - Epand K5 support - PC-EVN recorder support Far term: - Establish VLBA-style remote operations (key prerequisite is highly reliable equipment; two technicians per station for VLBI2010 stations; legacy stations with varying staff sizes; central operations center) Hayo Hase suggested to extend the Field System (FS) to enable remotely controlled operations, i.e. to setup networks operations control. Alan Whitney mentioned the GVWG (Global VLBI Working Group of URSI, Commission J), which is lead by J. Romney (NRAO) and has global coordination of VLBI networks in its charter. The Board tasked Ed to initiate the distributed development effort and get in contact with the GVWG. A first step is to add a day or two to the TOW2009 to discuss the issue with relevant station people. 6.5 Technology Coordinator’s short report (Alan Whitney) Effelsberg, Germany was connected at a rate of 1 Gbps. Efforts to connect Kokee Park, HI, USA look promising. Eventually a fiber cable is to be laid directly to the station; interim solution is microwave link yielding 80-100 Mbps. Haystack has 10 Gbps connection to GGAO at NASA/GSFC and 2.5 Gbps to the outside world. To connect the outside world also at 10 Gbps is being investigated, but cost implications are unknown. USNO will be connected at 622 Mbps in October/November 2008. The 7th International e-VLBI Workshop was held in Shanghai, China on June 16-17, 2008. An important action was the formation of the VDIF Task Force. The goal is to define a common VLBI data interchange format; such a format will eliminate the need to re-format data between various systems. The 8th International e-VLBI Workshop will be held in Madrid, Spain on June 22-26, 2009. Mark 5C hardware development is underway at Conduant Corporation, software development is underway at Haystack. Mark 5C will be compatible with VDIF data format to 4 Gbps using 10GigE interface. A prototype system is expected in spring 2009. An active international group is developing the DiFX software correlator based on the original Australian code. There are currently about 5 or 6 DiFX correlators in use/development worldwide. A decision has been made to support VEX schedules with DiFX, as this broadens the global compatibility. NRAO decided to adopt VEX. The NRAO/VLBA version of the DiFX software correlator is planned to replace the VLBA hardware correlator by the end of 2009. SATA is the recommended media type for new purchases. SATA was successfully used in CONT08 at several stations. The use of SATA requires both software and firmware upgrades. 6.6 VLBI2010 Committee chair extended report (Bill Petrachenko) The VLBI2010 CCommittee worked in four primary areas: (1) Monte-Carlo simulations: the results consolidate statements regarding clocks, delay precision, atmosphere, observation interval possible. (2) Subsystem recommendations: antenna recommendations, site recommendations, cost estimates. Dedicated workshops on specific topics is a possibility. (3) NASA proof-of-concept: four bands now complete, near future using GGAO four bands against Westford. (4) Interim Report: current version is fairly rough. Plan to have a smaller group finalize it. Prepare a draft final version for comments in about a month. Incorporate comments in December. Bill suggested establishing a project office to better handle resources management. A conceptual design review could be done in 9-12 months. 6.6.1 VLBI2010 Observing Spectra (Hayo Hase) Hayo Hase proposed to have a workshop on frequencies and feeds at Wettzell by March 2009. The Board agreed on holding such a workshop. The aim should be to give recommendations to the Board. 6.6.2 VLBI2010 Recommendations (Bill Petrachenko) The Board recognized that it is too early to give recommendations and that a special workshop may be needed for this in the future (similar to the Wettzell workshop). 6.7 Integration of e-transfer into scheduling (Arthur Niell) For the four Japanese GARNET stations the transfer needs to be done sequentially (to Haystack). This requires coordination. 6.8 Joint WG IERS/IVS/IAG/IAU on the Next ICRF (Chopo Ma) There was a WG meeting at the Journees in Dresden. 6.9 IVS WG4 ‘New Data Structures for VLBI’ chair’s report (John Gipson via telecon) The WG agreed on having monthly telecons, but to do the bulk of the work via e-mail. Gipson investigated various widely used data structures: CDF, netCDF, FITS, and HDFx. The next splinter meeting will be held in Bordeaux in spring of 2009 in conjunction with the EVGA meeting. 6.10 Short Reports on Status of VLBI2010 Projects (Oleg Titov, Hayo Hase) The antennas in Hobart, Australia and Warkworth, New Zealand are expected to be operational by late 2009. Hayo Hase reported about the progress of the Twin Telescope Wettzell. The two telescopes will be separated by 50-60 m and follow a ring-focus design. 7. Call for Combination Centers and new Operational Analysis Centers: Results and Decisions (Axel Nothnagel, Dirk Behrend, Harald Schuh) The call for proposals was successful with 4 proposals having been submitted: DGFI applied for upgrading to an Operational Analysis Center and Sternberg Astronmical Institute (SAI) of Moscow University for an Analysis Center. KASI (Korea) and BKG/DGFI applied both for becoming a Combination Center. The Board unanimously approved all four proposals. 8. Items related to IAG, IAU, FAGS, related VLBI groups (EVN, ...) including discussion 8.1 IAG 8.1.1 IAG Newsletter contributions (Dirk Behrend) There were articles submitted for the CONT08 campaign and the calls for proposals for combination centers and operational analysis centers. 8.1.2 IAG Commission 1 (Chopo Ma, Harald Schuh) Sebastien Lambert replaced Volker Tesmer as chair of WG 1.4.3 "Interaction of Celestial and Terrestrial Reference Frames". 8.2 IERS (Copo Ma, Axel Nothnagel) The next IERS Board meeting is scheduled for 25 October 2008 and will be held at the U.S. Naval Observatory. 8.3 GGOS (Chopo Ma, Dirk Behrend, Harald Schuh) The Global Geodetic Observing System (GGOS) posted calls for proposals for the Coordination Office and Portal as well as three Bureaus. The GGOS2020 Document is short of being finished and can then be referenced. 8.4 EVGA (Axel Nothnagel) The next EVGA meeting will be in Bordeaux, France on March 24-25, 2009. 8.5 IAU (Patrick Charlot) The Proceedings of IAU Symp. 248 “A Giant Step: from Milli- to Microarsecond Astrometry” (October 15-19, 2007, Shanghai) have been published by Cambridge University Press. The Journees 2008 will take place in Dresden, Germany on September 22-24, 2008. The IAU Symposium 261 "Relativity in Fundamental Astronomy: Dynamics, Reference Frame, and Data Analysis”, will take place 27 April – 1 May, 2009, in Virginia Beach, VA, USA. At the XXVIIth IAU General Assembly in Rio de Janeiro Joint Discussion 6: “Time and Astronomy" will be held on 6-7 August 2009. The Opening Ceremony of the International Year of Astronomy 2009 will be held 15-16 January 2009 at UNESCO headquarters in Paris. The EVN will organize an e-VLBI demonstration. 8.6 FAGS (Dirk Behrend) FAGS (Federation of Astronomical and Geophyiscal Data Analysis Services) will be merged with the WDC (World Data Centers) to form the WDS (World Data System). The merger is anticipated to happen around the middle of 2009, and a WDC-FAGS Transition Team was created. 8.7 EVN (Patrick Charlot) Meetings: - last EVN CBD+JIVE Board held in Bordeaux on 24-25 April 2008 - next TOG meeting: Bologna, 22 September 2008 - 9th EVN Symposium: Bologna, 23-26 September 2008 - Next JIVE Board: Dwingeloo, 8-9 October 2008 - Next EVN CBD: Arecibo, 3-4 November 2008 The 9th EVN Symposium "The role of VLBI in the Golden Age for Radio Astronomy" will have a geodesy and astrometry session with several speakers from the IVS community. Techniques: - First fringes to Yebes (K band) on 30/05/2008 during EVN session 2/2008 - Yebes to participe in EVN session 3/2008 at K band and S/X band EVN Program Committee: T. Venturi took over as new Chair on June 1, 2008 (replacing P. Charlot). 9. Meetings 9.1 Recent Meetings in 2008 Xiuzhong Zhang reported on the 7th International e-VLBI Workshop held in Shanghai 16-17 June 2008. There were 87 participants from 11 countries giving 22 oral and 6 poster presentations. The presentations are available online at: http://www.shao.ac.cn/eVLBI2008/presentation/. 9.2 Next Directing Board meeting (Harald Schuh) The next Board meeting will take place in Bordeaux, France on March 23, 2009. [After the meeting, the fall Board meeting could be fixed to be held in Buenos Aires, Argentina on August 29, 2009.] 10. Next IVS Directing Board elections (Dirk Behrend) The timeline for the Directing Board elections was set to be as follows: - nominations for representative positions: November 2008 - representative elections: 1-15 December 2008 - nominations for at-large positions: 16 December 2008 - 15 January 2009 - at-large elections by Board: 16-31 January 2009 - announcement of results: early February 2009 Next board meeting: March 23, 2009 in Bordeaux, France