21st IVS Directing Board Meeting Summary notes Held at Bordeaux Observatory, Bordeaux, France 23 March 2009 Notes by DB, first version 090323 revised 090529, 090724, 090824 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, Gino Tuccari, Ruediger Haas, Dirk Behrend Guests: Leonid Gurvits for TOP 10 and John Gipson for TOP 8.10 ACTIONS: 1. Welcome (Harald Schuh) Harald Schuh introduced Gino Tuccari (Networks Representative) and Ruediger Haas (Technology Development Center Representative) to the IVS board. Andrey Finkelstein and Ray Norris could not attend. 2. Approval of Agenda The board approved the agenda for the 20th DB meeting without changes. 3. Approval of minutes of the 20th DB meeting (Harald Schuh) The minutes of the 20th DB were approved. 4. IVS DB Chair's Report (Harald Schuh) Correspondence together with Dirk Behrend: - Letter of support to Hartebeesthoek Radio Astronomy Observatory. - Letter to IRA/INAF in support of their VLBI program. - Letter of support to University of Turku (Finland) regarding a radio telescope in Trinidad. - Letter to SHAO in support of their performance evaluation. - Letter to VNIIFTRI (National Research Institute for Physical-technical and Radio Engineering Measurements), Moscow supporting Russian VLBI2010 activities. - Letters to Prof. Ambrosini (INAF) and Prof. Gruenreich (BKG) informing about the nomination of H. Hase as new IVS representative on CRAF. Harald Schuh supported several VLBI2010 activities. He participated in the final editing of the V2C Progress Report in Mill Valley, CA from December 11-13, 2008, was involved in discussions about the VLBI2010 Project Office, and participated in the RAEGE workshop in Madrid. Presentations: - Oral presentation about the IVS in Karlsruhe, Germany on February 5, 2009. - Oral presentation about the IVS in Sarajevo, Bosnia & Herzegovina at the BALGEOS Workshop on February 26, 2009. The application for IAG Sponsorship of the General Meeting 2010 was accepted at the IAG Executive Committee meeting on December 14, 2008. 3-5 travel grants will be accepted for young scientists (<35 years) with a funding of up to 800 EURO per grant. Applications need to be submitted to the IAG Secretary General Hermann Drewes (DGFI). 5. IVS CC Director's Report (Dirk Behrend) Activities since the last board meeting were: - Publication of December Newsletter - Publication of 2008 Annual Report under way - Maintenance of mailing lists and Web site - Observing program coordination - Liaison with other services in the frame of GGOS and FAGS - Support of Directing Board elections - VLBI2010 Committee support (especially editing the Progress Report) - Coordination of the fifth Technical Operations Workshop (TOW2009) The proceedings volume for GM2008 was printed and mailed out. The PDF version was posted online. The CONT08 campaign was observed in the period August 12-26, 2008. Eleven stations observed 15 consecutive days at a rate of 512 Mbps. The observing was done on the basis of UT days with each CONT08 day running from 0 UT to 24 UT. The staggered station check times of two-hour length worked very well avoiding complete observational gaps as was the case for CONT05. WACO completed correlation and version 4 databases are available at the Data Center. The proposal of ICSU's Ad-hoc Strategic Committee on Information and Data (SCID) to merge the Federation of Astronomical and Geophysical Data Analysis Services (FAGS) and the World Data Centers (WDCs) to form the so-called World Data System (WDS) was approved at the ICSU General Assembly in October 2008. A WDC-FAGS Transition Team was established to pave the way for a smooth changeover. Activities for the next several months include: - Publication of April 2009 and August 2009 Newsletters. - Publication of 2008 Annual Report. - Coordination of TOW2009. - Continued participation in GGOS activities. Assume activities in the WDS, the successor to FAGS. - Coordinate next Directing Board meeting. 6. Decision about Change of the Terms of Reference (Dirk Behrend) There are three areas of changes to the Terms of Reference (ToR): - inclusion of combination centers in the permanent components part - altered re-election rule if a Board member departs before the end of his/her term - update of commission names in the Corresponding Members section The board suggested several changes to the wording. [Dirk Behrend prepared an updated version after the meeting. The board approved the new version of the ToR via e-mail voting.] 7. Decision about New IVS Component Applications (Dirk Behrend, Harald Schuh) Auckland University of Technology submitted a proposal for the new station at Warkworth, New Zealand (about 60 km north of Auckland) to become an IVS Network Station. The Board unanimously accepted the proposal. Karadeniz Technical University in Trabzon, Turkey applied for becoming an Associate Analysis Center. The Board unanimously accepted the proposal. The forms for becoming IVS components need to be overhauled and updated. The coordinators and the Coordinating Center in conjunction with the respective component representatives should prepare a draft for each component type. The form should remain one page long. The ATNF (Australia Telescope National Facility) is interested in IVS membership. 8. Reports of the Coordinators, WG and Committee Chairs 8.1 Observing Program Committee (Dirk Behrend) Issues discussed in the period since the last board meeting were: - 2009 planning: The observing plan is mostly media and station time driven. 2009 basically carries forward the 2008 plan. Of importance is that the observational rates for the R1s and R4s will be increased to 512 Mbps and 256 Mbps, respectively, taking advantage of the disk media purchased for CONT08. Also to be noted is that HartRAO is down for the entire year (and possibly beyond) with the largest impact on the CRF sessions. - Use of R&D to supplement CRF monitoring. One of the sessions will also be used to observe the close approach of Saturn to the compact radio source 1125+062. - Update of Calc/Solve software to allow interpolation to hourly epochs, making the start of sessions at the full hour unnecessary. 8.2 IVS Contribution to the International Year of Astronomy, IVS Super Session (Patrick Charlot) The Task Force has not been active yet. There are ideas about what could be done also inspired by the EVN activity at the opening of IYA2009. It is important that the supersession is accompanied by outreach activities at the stations and yields scientific results. 8.3 Analysis Coordinator's short report and Call for Proposals for 'IVS Observing Session Investigators The Russian domestic data (34 sessions) were received in NGS format. We still miss the conversion from NGS format to database format. We received the VERA Japanese domestic data (55 sessions). Here we miss answers on the question if sessions can be included in the IVS Master Schedule. For the ITRF2008 efforts we have verbal commitments of 7 ACs. Four of them have submitted data. The EOP combinations suffered a big loss in accuracy when Fairbanks dropped out and the Russian stations were still young. The increased noise level that resulted at that time is now getting better. The Combination Center at BKG/DGFI is gearing up. An internal deadline of October 1, 2009 was set for taking over the operational combination work. The Combination Center at KASI (Korea) will be a backup. The Analysis Coordinator will continue to do the final quality control. 8.4 Network Coordinator's short report (Ed Himwich) A preliminary station performance for 2008 was based on the results from 155 sessions; 29 sessions were not available yet by the time of the Board meeting. The statistics has 1,121 station days; on average there were ~7.2 stations in a given session. About 15.1% (169.2 days) of the data was lost. This loss is expressed in observing time; the overall data loss is about twice as much (about 30%). The data loss slightly increased with respect to previous years (2006, 13.6%; 2007, 11.4%). The least loss was in the CONT campaigns (CONT05, 4.0%; CONT08, 9.3%). 2008 station issues: - Forteza: antenna, warm receiver - Ny-Alesund: warm receiver, local oscillator, cable - TIGO: local oscillator - Matera: warm X-band receiver, RFI - Medicina: RFI - Zelenchukskaya: BBCs, antenna - Badary: BBC or RFI - Svetloe: RFI or BBC - Hartebeesthoek: antenna failure FS Development: A. Neidhardt (Wettzell) has developed the IDL2RPC client-server (CS) package. IDL2RPC fits well into an emerging CS structure for VLBI2010 control software. The FS has modular design which allows IDL2RPC to be incrementally integrated. The near term plan is to develop a roadmap for implementation. The TOW meeting will have a demonstration of the new user interface and a development discussion. 8.5 Technology Coordinator's short report (Alan Whitney) VLBI Data Interchange Format (VDIF): A VDIF Task Force was launched at Shanghai workshop consisting of Alan Whitney (chair), Mark Kettnis (JIVE), Chris Phillips (CSIRO), and Mamoru Sekido (NICT). Its goal is to define a common VLBI data interchange format that eliminates the need to re-format data between various systems. The VSI-E standard is too complex for general usage; it will be replaced by another format to be developed for e-VLBI/e-transfer (in similar lines as VDIF). DBE compatibility testing using zero-baselines is planned directly after the TOW2009 meeting. The test will include the European dBBC, the Chinese CDAS, the Haystack DBE1, and the Japanese DBE. The 8th International e-VLBI Workshop will take place in Madrid, Spain during June 22-26, 2009. The workshop has an expanded agenda covering a full week; it is a joint IVS/astronomical workshop. Mark 5C update: The 3rd generation Mark 5 system will be compatible with the VDIF data format to 4 Gbps using 10GigE interface. A hardware prototype has been delivered to Haystack and NRAO. DiFX software correlator development: An active international group is developing DiFX based on original Australian code. There are regular DiFX Users' meetings for coordination. The decision has been made to support VEX schedules with DiFX in order to broaden global compatibility. A careful comparison against Mark 4 correlator shows good agreement. It is likely that VLBI2010 system correlator will be based on DiFX. 8.6 VLBI2010 Committee Chair report and presentation of V2C Progress Report (Bill Petrachenko) The VLBI2010 Committee (V2C) Progress Report (PR) was finalized. The PR contains a description of the Monte Carlo simulators and the current understanding of how the system will actually be implemented. It gives real results with the NASA proof-of-concept, mentions risks, and outlines the next steps. The PR covers progress until the end of 2008. Beyond the PR the V2C was involved in preparing and organizing the FRFF workshop in Wettzell. The next steps will be to push forward the developments in hardware, media requirements, and the software correlator. A transition plan is a higher level task and the V2C may not be the right group to put the recommendations into reality. The Board agreed to establish a VLBI2010 Project Executive Group (V2PEG) spread over several agencies with Hayo Hase as the lead. The additional members of V2PEG are Bill Petrachenko, Dirk Behrend, Harald Schuh, Chopo Ma, and Alan Whitney. The tasks of the group shall encompass dealing with funding agencies (including who to contact and how) and keeping track of resources. 8.7 VLBI2010 Future Radio Frequencies and Feeds (Bill Petrachenko) The four days of VLBI2010 workshops in Wettzell, Germany was very useful and successful. Three days were dedicated to the Future Radio Frequencies and Feeds (FRFF) and one day to Digital Back Ends (DBEs) and software correlators (V2C meeting). At the FRFF workshop various groups presented their feed developments (Chalmers, Cornell, NRAO, Mirad). An outcome of the FRFF workshop was recommendations pertaining to the choice of frequencies for the VLBI2010 system as well as its backward compatibility. The recommend- ations are: - The initial implementation of the VLBI2010 system needs to be capable of observing the broadband frequency range of ~2.2-14 GHz. - The VLBI2010 system needs to be capable of S/X operation. - The antenna should allow for a possible future inclusion of Ka-band (32 GHz) operation. - The complete end-to-end operation of the VLBI2010 system should be demonstrated in a campaign in early 2012. As many antennas as possible should participate. - A plan should be established for the transition from the legacy S/X system to the VLBI2010 broadband delay system. Such a transition plan can be beneficial for obtaining future funding and will support a timely changeover. The Directing Board fully endorsed these recommendations. There are four groups working on DBE development; these developments need to be coordinated. The VLBA will change over to a software correlator. 8.8 Integration of e-transfers into the scheduling/observation/correlation chain (Arthur Niell) This item can be deferred until the situation is better understood. A more automated procedure may be useful. 8.9 Joint WG IERS/IVS/IAG/IAU on the next ICRF, short report (Chopo Ma) The WG met in December at the U.S. Naval Observatory. A timeline for finishing the work in the remaining time was developed. The next WG meeting will be held at the end of the Bordeaux week. Major progress needs to be made in the next two months. A resolution for the IAU GA2009 in Rio should be drafted by the middle of May. An IERS Technical Note needs to be written. 8.10 IVS WG4 on VLBI Data Structures Chair's Report (John Gipson) The goal of the working group is to define a new VLBI data structure. John Gipson recommended using NetCDF as the basis because of being able to access sub-sets of the data and the existence of a large user community with an extensive collection of tools to access and plot the data. In addition, NetCDF is a self-describing data format, it is easy to add new data types, and there are utilities to convert between ASCII and NetCDF format. The VLBI data within a session can be organized following the theme that data that is similar in scope, origin, physical effect, or frequency of change is gathered together in separate NetCDF files. These files can then be organized by wrappers; a wrapper file would be the equivalent of a current database file. The next steps include to solicit feedback and refine the approach. Software needs to be written to convert from Mk3 to the new format and to create the new format from scratch. A report is planned to be submitted by the General Meeting 2010 in Hobart, Australia. 8.11 Short reports on status and progress of the AuScope/NZ, TWin Telescope, RAEGE, Korean Geodetic VLBI station, and other VLBI2010 projects Oleg Titov reported on the status of AuScope and the New Zealand activities. The first dish is being shipped to Hobart. In Katherine a geotechnical survey is underway in order to determine the best siting. At Warkworth, New Zealand an RFI test at 1.6 GHz showed good results, that is minimal RFI. Hayo Hase reported that the soil analysis for the location of the Twin Telescope at Wettzell had been completed. The construction work is expected to start this year (2009), beginning with the operations building. Arthur Niell reported on the Spanish RAEGE project. There was a meeting in Spain about where to locate Spanish VLBI2010 antennas. The plan currently consists of placing one VLBI2010 antenna at Yebes, one on the Azores, and one on the Canary Islands. An additional VLBI2010 antenna on the Azores may be sponsored by Portugal. Kazuhiro Takashima informed the Board about NGII's activities with respect to the Korean geodetic VLBI station. NGII is the Korean equivalent to Japan's GSI. The geodetic station, called KVG, will be built in Sejong. The construction schedule for the 22-m antenna has been established and completion is foreseen for October 2011. The three KVN stations have already been built; they will be used mostly for astronomy. Chopo reported that the Norwegian Mapping Authority (NMA) submitted a proposal for a project for in Alesund. The proposal is now with the Ministry of Finance. The NASA proof-of-concept dish is ordered from Patriot. An ambitious plan for 10 fundamental stations is currently under discussion. Xiuzhong Zhang mentioned that at Shanghai Observatory a 65-m telescope will be built and that the contractor will also provide a 12-m telescope with SKA specifications (slew speeds of 6 deg/s in azimuth and 3 deg/s in elevation). Patrick Charlot said that he sent a short proposal to the French Space Agency (CNES); the proposal is supported by various French space geodesy groups and is currently being reviewed. The primary goal is for a VLBI2010 antenna on Tahiti. 9. Proposal for a new WG on 'VLBI Education' (Harald Schuh) There are about 200-300 people involved in VLBI activities of varying expertise. It can be assumed that this number will be maintained or increased slightly. For the education of the next generation of VLBI experts, training and education in the form of summer schools, lecture notes, leaflets for improved outreach, educational folders could be organized. The motion to establish a Working Group on VLBI Education and Training was approved by the board. Ruediger agreed to be the chair and the board unanimously approved his chairmanship. A core group shall be established that will formulate the charter of the working group. The charter should be finalized by the next board meeting. The working group will the sixth WG of the IVS (WG6). As deliverable a final report of maybe 20-30 pages is being expected. An outcome should be recommendations for educational activities. 10. Proposal for a new WG on 'VLBI for Radioscience Missions' (Leonid Gurvits) Leonid Gurvits (JIVE) presented the case for an IVS WG on Space Science Applications. The presentation was co-authored by Veronique Dehant (Royal Observatory of Belgium, ROB) and Sergei Pogrebenko (JIVE). In the last several years synergies emerged between IVS and Space Science, in particular for geodetic support of antennas involved in S/C (spacecraft) tracking and in VLBI surveys of reference sources. VLBI may be used in several solar system exploration missions in 2010-2030. VLBI could track orbiters, landers, and/or atmospheric balloons. Studies are underway for VLBI tracking of space missions. There is a very positive heritage from the Huygens probe of the Cassini mission. 17 VLBI stations observed the descent trajectory of the Huygens probe through the atmosphere of Saturn's moon Titan. A 1-km accuracy was achieved, which was an important support in achieving the main science goals of the mission. The board unanimously approved Harald's motion to establish a WG on Space Science Applications. The working group should have more than 50% membership from IVS. The working group will be the fifth WG of the IVS (WG5). The WG would work 1-2 years and give recommendations to the Board on future activities. The board unanimously approved the motion that L. Gurvits becomes the chair of WG5. [L. Gurvits agreed to chair the WG in an e-mail correspondence after the meeting.] Patrick accepted to co-chair the new working group. A draft charter with tentative membership of WG5 should be prepared for approval by the next board meeting. 11. Items related to IAG, IAU, FAGS, and related VLBI groups 11.1 IAG 11.1.1 IAG Newsletter contributions Dirk mentioned that possible contributions to the IAG Newsletter can be about CONT08, the FRFF Recommendations, and the General Meeting GM2010. 11.1.2 IAG Commission 1 (Chopo Ma, Harald Schuh) Z. Altamimi (IGN France) is working on the ITRF2008. An Interim Report is to be finished just before the IAG Scientific Assembly in Buenos Aires, Argentina. The assembly will take place from 31 August to 4 September 2009. 11.1.3 IAG Sponsorship of next GM (Harald Schuh) covered in Chair's report (TOP 4). 11.2 IERS (Chopo Ma) The most important interaction between IERS and IVS was the IVS input to the ITRF2008 activity. Within the IERS, the Global Geophysical Fluids Center is to be organized. The next Board meeting will be held during the EGU meeting in Vienna. There is a plan to have a follow-up of the Unified Analysis Workshop; it will take place in the week before the Fall AGU meeting. Ruediger Haas agreed to be the new IVS Representative on the IERS Directing Board taking this position over from Axel Nothnagel. 11.3 GGOS (Chopo Ma) A GGOS Retreat is tentatively scheduled to be held before the Unified Analysis Workshop. The GGOS Coordination Office is still not filled. The GGOS2020 Document is finalized and is to be printed at Springer Verlag. Hayo mentioned that GGOS is very much science driven and BKG proposed a stakeholder conference to also make use of the stakeholder opportunities. 11.4 EVGA (Axel Nothnagel) The next EVGA Meeting will take place in the next two days. 93 participants are expected, the biggest participation in an EVGA meeting ever. 11.5 IAU (Patrick Charlot) The International Year of Astronomy 2009 was opened in Paris on 15-16 January 2009 at UNESCO. About 800 (invited) people attended. Upcoming events in the IYA2009 are: 100 hours of Astronomy, 2-5 April 2009, http://www.100hoursofastronomy.org. See also http://www.astronomy2009.org for all other IYA2009 activities. Future meetings: - IAU Symposium 261, "Relativity in fundamental Astronomy: Dynamics, Reference Frame, and Data Analysis", Virginia Beach, VA, April 27 - May 1, 2009. - XXVIIth IAU General Assembly (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 3-14 August 2009) Division 1 (Fundamental Astronomy): 3 August 2009, Commission 19 (Rotation of the Earth): 5 August 2009, Joint Discussion 6 "Time and Astronomy": 6-7 August 2009. News: - IAU Bulletin 103 (February 2009) accessible online. - Commission 19: next president: Harald Schuh, next vice-president: Chengli Huang. Harald said that the IVS needs to nominate a representative to the IAU Commission 19 Organizing Committee. The work of the committee will mostly be done via e-mail discussion. O. Titov agreed to be the IVS representative. 11.6 EVN (Patrick Charlot) Meetings: - 9th EVN Symposium, Bologna, 23-26 September 2008; all presentations are on line at http://www.ira.inaf.it/meetings/evn9/ - last EVN CBD in Arecibo, 4 November 2008; an EVN science day was also held in Arecibo the day before. Future meetings: - next TOG meeting in Torun on 17 April 2009 - next EVN CBD+JIVE Board in Onsala on 26-27 May 2009 - 8th International e-VLBI Workshop "Science and Technology of Long Baseline Real-Time Interferometer" in Madrid on 22-26 June 2009 Outreach: - global e-VLBI demo at the IYA2009 official opening in Paris on 15-16 January 2009 - next e-VLBI demo in the period 2-5 April 2009 during the IYA2009 100 hours of astronomy 11.7 FAGS (Dirk Behrend) covered in CC Director's report (TOP 5) 12. Meetings 12.1 Recent meetings (all) EVN Symposium and RAEGE covered in TOP 11.6 and 8.11. Arthur reported on the Integration and Automation Workshop that was held at Haystack 23-25 February 2009. 12.2 GM2010, Program Committee (Dirk Behrend) The General Meeting 2010 (GM2010) will be held February 7-14, 2009 in Hobart, Tasmania, Australia. The Board named the following people to the Program Committee: D. Behrend (chair), J. Lovell, A. Nothnagel, A. Whitney, E. Himwich, O. Titov, K. Takashima, X. Zhang, H. Hase, B. Petrachenko, A. Niell, R. Ichikawa [confirmed after meeting], and G. Tuccari. 12.3 Next DB meetings (Harald Schuh) Fall Board meeting 2009: Buenos Aires, Argentina; on Sat Aug 29, 2009. Spring Board meeting 2010: in Hobart, Australia; on Fri Feb 12, 2010. 13. Miscellaneous (all) None.