22nd Directing Board Meeting Summary notes Held at El Conquistador Hotel, Buenos Aires, Argentina 29 August 2009 Notes by DB, 100206 Attending: Chopo Ma, Oleg Titov, Harald Schuh, Patrick Charlot, Alan Whitney, Hayo Hase, Axel Nothnagel, Xiuzhong Zhang, Ed Himwich, Gino Tuccari, Kazuhiro Takashima, Andrey Finkelstein, Ruediger Haas, Dirk Behrend Guests: Bill Petrachenko (full meeting), John Gipson for TOP 6.9 (via telecon), and Leonid Gurvits for TOP 7 (via telecon) ACTIONS: 1. Welcome (Harald Schuh) Kerry Kingham could not attend. Bill Petrachenko participated on invitation as the Chair of the VLBI2010 Committee. 2. Approval of agenda The board approved the agenda for the 22nd DB meeting. 3. Approval of minutes of the 21st DB meeting (Harald Schuh) The formal approval of the notes was postponed to two weeks after the DB meeting. [The notes were then approved and posted.] 4. IVS DB Chair’s report (Harald Schuh) Correspondence together with Dirk Behrend: - Letter to IGN Spain in support of the RAEGE project - Letter to Karadeniz Technical University welcoming them as new IVS Associate Analysis Center. - Letter to Auckland University of Technology welcoming Warkworth Observatory as new IVS Network Station. - Letter to the Director of the IERS Central Bureau (Bernd Richter) nominating Ruediger Haas as IVS Representative to the IERS Directing Board. Presentations on IVS and VLBI2010: - GGOS Bureau on Networks and Communications, Vienna, April 2009. - 6th Orlov Conference, Kiev, June 2009. - IAU Commission 19 Business Meeting, Rio de Janeiro, August 2009. - Several presentations in Colombia and Brazil in August 2009. 5. IVS CC Director’s report (Dirk Behrend) Activities since the last board meeting were: - Publication of April and August Newsletters - Publication of 2008 Annual Report - Publication of V2C Progress Report - Maintenance of mailing lists and Web site - Observing program coordination - Liaison with other services in the frame of GGOS and FAGS - VLBI2010 Committee support (Progress Report) Correspondence: - letter of support to HartRAO (recommendation for future VLBI antennas, outcome: repair of 26-m antenna, use of 15-m antenna for geodetic VLBI) - letter to Auckland University of Technology accepting Network Station "Warkworth" - letter to Karadeniz Technical University (accepting Associate Analaysis Center at KTU) - letter to IERS Central Bureau nominating Ruediger Haas as new IVS Representative to the IERS Board - letter of support for RAEGE (Red Atlantica de Estaciones Geodinamicas y Espaciales) The WDC-FAGS Transition Team commenced work on the establishment of the World Data System (WDS). Activities for the next several months include: - Publication of December 2009 Newsletter. - Commence work on 2009 Annual Report publication. - Coordination of the 6th IVS General Meeting. - Continued participation in GGOS activities. Assume activities in the WDS, the successor to FAGS. - Coordinate next Directing Board meeting. 6. Reports of the Coordinators, existing WG and Committee Chairs 6.1 Observing Program Committee Chair short report (Dirk Behrend) Issues discussed in the period since the last board meeting were: - R1 and R4 sessions data rate increase - Purpose of 2009 R&D sessions - Int2 data delivery - VERA stations in T2 sessions - IYA2009 astrometric session (see TOP 6.2). - 2010 planning 6.2 IVS Contribution to the International Year of Astronomy, IVS Supersession (Patrick Charlot, Dirk Behrend) The scientific goal of the IYA09 session will be to observe as many of the 295 ICRF2 defining sources in a single session as possible. The Coordinating Center will set up a central Web page on the IVS Web site functioning as a repository of information for the Supersession. Bordeaux Observatory will prepare a dynamic Web page showing VLBI maps of the sources; the source map will change with every new scan. Patrick Charlot will contact the IYA09 authorities for official inclusion and announcement. A press release will be prepared and distributed. Dirk Behrend will prepare handout material for the stations. 6.3 Analysis Coordinator’s short report and Call for Proposals for ‘IVS Observing Session Investigators’ (Axel Nothnagel) The Analysis Coordinator’s office prepared and submitted the official IVS contribution to the ITRF2008. The submission consisted of session-wise datum-free normal equations of 4,539 daily VLBI sessions from 1979.7 to 2009.0 with data from 115 VLBI sites. The combination was based on individual contributions from seven IVS Analysis Centers. The Analysis Coordinator’s office will prepare a paper for Journal of Geodesy about the VLBI terrestrial reference frame contribution to ITRF2008. The solution of two analysis centers were left out in the combination solution due to irregularities (IAA and Geoscience Australia). No work was done on the Observing Session Investigators (OSI). Axel will follow up on the OSI after the meeting. 6.4 Network Coordinator’s short report (Ed Himwich) Station issues: - Fortaleza: antenna, warm receiver - Ny-Alesund: receiver cooling resolved; Ed, Rich Strand and Brian Corey did a site visit of a week which was very productive - TIGO: LO problem? - Matera: x-band receiver is warm, RFI - Zelenchukskaya: antenna more reliable - Badary: minor antenna issues - Svetloe: minor antenna issues, currently being repaired? - HartRAO: antenna failed, but under repair; active again 3rd quarter of 2010; 15-m antenna will also become available for geodetic work - Kokee: formatter intermittent, needs Azimuth gearbox replaced New stations: - New Zealand has had "first light" - three stations in Australia in development - Patriot antenna for GSFC on order Hayo explained that at Wettzell the construction of the two towers of the TWIN telescope has commenced. The foundation needs to settle over the winter time. First light is expected by the end of 2011. Andrey mentioned that IAA got money for the installation of 2-3 12-m type antennas in QUASAR network. The slewing rates will be 9 deg/sec and 6 deg/sec. It is planned to build the new antennas at the beginning of 2012 in Badary and Zelen- chukskaya. 6.5 Technology Coordinator’s short report (Alan Whitney) VLBI Data Interchange Format (VDIF): A VDIF Task Force was launched at the Shanghai e-VLBI workshop in June 2008 consisting of Alan Whitney (chair), Mark Kettnis (JIVE), Chris Phillips (CSIRO), and Mamoru Sekido (NICT). The goal was to define a common VLBI data interchange format. The VDIF Release 1.0 was ratified by the attendees of the Madrid e-VLBI workshop in June 2009. A task force was appointed for the next step of a "VLBI Transport Protocol (VTP); the chair of the task force is Chris Phillips (ATNF). A Web site www.vlbi.org was launched with the intention of creating an institution-independent VLBI Web site. A DBE comparison testing (zero-baseline tests) was conducted at Haystack on 4-5 May 2009 following the TOW meeting. 6.6 Joint WG IERS/IVS/IAG/IAU on the next ICRF, Chair’s report (Chopo Ma) The IAU General Assembly voted to adopt the ICRF2 (in Resolution B3). Highlights of the ICRF2 include that it has - 3414 compact extragalactic sources (5 times more than ICRF1), - a noise floor of approximately 40 microarcsec (5-6 times better than ICRF1), and - an axis stability of approximately 10 microarcsec. 6.7 IVS WG4 ‘New Data Structures for VLBI’ Chair’s report (John Gipson) Current Status: - John circulated a draft proposal in July. - specification of session organization. - description of standard information contained in NetCDF files. - specification of wrapper grammar. - some details need to be worked out. Comments were generally positive. Some questions were asked, but there were no show-stoppers. - John wrote software to extract a subset of data from databases and put them into the new format. This subset contains all of the data currently in NGS cards. - Vienna group has written software to read from new format. - Sergei Bolotin looked at timing issues related to using NetCDF instead of a proprietary custom binary format for Steelbreeze. He found that, without any sort of optimization, there was a penalty of 40 microseconds/obs. Since we currently have ~7 million observations, this means the total timing penalty is ~280 seconds. This is a worse case scenario. Future work: - Address some issues raised in comments to the draft RFP: - Connection with Vex. - Units - Other mostly minor issues. - Continue to expand the software which goes from Mark3 DB --> New format until it is complete. - Convert all databases to new format. - The above all deals with individual sessions. How do we tie the sessions together? We need to develop a database analagous to the Master file, or the source-monitoring database, that contains information about the whole data set. 6.8 VLBI2010 Committee Chair’s report (Bill Petrachenko) Status of Broadband tests: - two complete (but not final) VLBI2010 systems have been designed and manufactured: - commercial broadband feed, 2-14 GHz - four 512-Mhz frequency settable bands - 8 Gbps record rate - one system was installed at the 5-m antenna at GGAO - the second was installed at the 18-m Westford antenna - stable PCAL is detected at both sites - consistent fringes detected on all bands - first BBD tests are currently underway VLBI2010 hardware challenges: - Eleven feed: - most recent version approaching 2-14 GHz, according to preliminary tests - RF interaction with cryostat under study - connections to LNAs under design - has not yet been cooled to cryogenic temperatures - Differential LNAs: - wafers soon to be fabricated - PCAL: - new (non-tunnel diode) antenna unit designed and deployed at Haystack - injection point undecided - cable cal (potential coupling with geometry) - use an ultra-stable cable (Is it stable enough?) - other schemes habe been proposed. - Noise cal: - injection point undecided, but must be before LNA - synchronous 80 Hz - Up-Down Converters: - current range: 1-13 GHz - needed range: 2-14 GHz - DBE: - full 1-GHZ per band - RFI avoidance - high quality data chacateriation - four capable groups: Haystack, Italy, Japan, China 6.9 VLBI2010 Project Executive Group Chair’s report (Hayo Hase) The VLBI2010 Project Executive Group (V2PEG) was established at the Directing Board meeting in Bordeaux on March 23, 2009. the V2PEG consists of H. Hase (chair), D. Behrend, C. Ma, B. Petrachenko, H. Schuh, and A. Whitney. The first activity was to define the scope of the work. The V2PEG will provide strategic leadership to the VLBI2010 project and guide the transition from the VLBI2010 development phase to the VLBI2010 implementation phase. In a second activity all VLBI2010 ideas were gathered and assembled in a table. The table contains 10 tasks and 46 activities. Based on this table, a project plan (road map for VLBI2010) will be established. Work packages in different areas will be defined and a call for participation issued. 6.10 Short reports on status and progress of VLBI2010 projects covered in TOP 6.4 7. New IVS WG 5 ‘Space Science Applications’ Chair’s report and approval of Terms of Reference (Leonid Gurvits) The Board unanimously accepted the charter for Working Group 5 (WG5) on Space Science Applications. The working group should be called WG5 (and not WGSSA). To the list of possible members the names of Drazan Svehla, Roger Cappallo, and Chris Jacobs should be added. 8. New IVS WG 6 ‘VLBI Education and Training’ Chair’s report and approval of Terms of Reference (Ruediger Haas) The Board unanimously accepted the charter for Working Group 6 (WG6) on VLBI Education and Training. 9. DORIS Interference at IVS stations (see letter of Frank Lemoine), proposal for tests (Ed Himwich, all) A small investigative group was created to look into VLBI-DORIS interferences. The suggested members of this group were Ed Himwich, Bill Petrachenko, Brian Corey, and Sergey Smolentsev. They will work with the Analysis Coordinator of the International DORIS Service (IDS), Frank Lemoine, on the interference issue. 10. Auxiliary Data at Stations (Axel Nothnagel) Going from session-wise to seamless data storage requires the approval from the Directing Board before approaching the stations. The Board established a Task Force on Seamless Data Storage with members being Ed Himwich, Axel Nothnagel, Dirk Behrend, John Gipson. Arthur Niell will be asked to chair this task force. 11. Items related to IAG, IAU, FAGS, and related VLBI groups 11.1 IAG 11.1.1 IAG Newsletter contributions (Dirk Behrend, all) Topics that can be contributed to the IAG Newsletter will be the ICRF2, the call for the CONT08 special issue in Journal of Geodesy, and the second announcement of the GM2010. 11.1.2 IAG Commission 1 (Chopo Ma, Harald Schuh) A session on reference frames will be held on the Monday of the IAG Scientific Assembly in Buenos Aires. 11.1.3 Journal of Geodesy, special issue on CONT08 (Call, nomination of guest editors) The Editor-in-Chief of Journal of Geodesy (JoG) agreed on having a special issue on "CONT08", provided a preliminary call for papers yields enough interest. If the pre-call warrants a sufficient number of submissions, a full call can be issued. The special issue will be limited to one physical issue of JoG (about 100 pages, 7-9 papers). The Board suggested that Axel Nothnagel, Urs Hugentobler, and David Salstein be the guest editors for this special issue. All three agreed to take on this task. 11.2 IERS (Chopo Ma, Ruediger Haas), nomination of IVS representatives to IERS WG on Co-location (Harald Schuh) The Board agreed by consensus that Ruediger Haas be the IVS Representative to the IERS WG on Co-location. Dirk Behrend will inform Pierguido Sarti. 11.3 GGOS (Chopo Ma, Dirk Behrend, Harald Schuh), nomination of IVS delegates to GGOS UAW Workshop (Harald Schuh) Dirk Behrend was approved as IVS representative to the GGOS Working Group on Data and Information Systems (WG DIS). For the GGOS Unified Analysis Workshop in San Francisco in December 2009, the Board nominated five IVS delegates: Johannes Boehm, Robert Heinkelmann, Dan MacMillan, Axel Nothnagel, and Thomas Hobiger. The service chair is automatically included. 11.4 EVGA (Axel Nothnagel) The Proceedings of the EVGA meeting in Bordeaux in March 2009 is ready. The next EVGA meeting will be held in Bonn in spring 2011. 11.5 IAU (Patrick Charlot, Harald Schuh) The IAU General Assembly took place in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in July 2009. 11.6 EVN (Patrick Charlot) Meetings: - last EVN CBD + JIVE Board - 8th International e-VLBI Workshop - YERAC (Young European Radio Astronomers Conference) Publications: - Proceedings of 9th EVN Symposium - EVN bi-annual report Observations: - e-EVN (roughly one 24-hour session every month) 11.7 FAGS (Dirk Behrend) covered in TOP 5 12. Meetings 12.1 Recent Meetings (8th e-VLBI Workshop in Madrid, TOW at Haystack) (all) covered in TOPs 6.5 and 5 12.2 GM2010: Program Committee, travel grants of IAG and FAGS (Harald Schuh, Dirk Behrend) The Program Committee has been established but was not active yet. Harald Schuh will speak to Hermann Drewes about the IAG Travel Grants. There will be a one-day VLBI/GNSS workshop in Auckland in the week following GM2010. 12.3 Next DB meetings (Harald Schuh) The next DB meeting will be held on February 12, 2010 on the Friday of the GM2010 week. 13. Miscellaneous (all) Hayo shortly reported about the CRAF activities. A continuous monitoring for frequencies is done at several sites.