Summary of the Third IVS Directing Board meeting Wettzell, 20 February 2000 Attending: C. Ma, W. Cannon, T. Kondo, S. Matsuzaka, A. Nothnagel, N. Capitaine, E. Himwich, J. Campbell, N. Vandenberg, W. Schlueter 1. Board issues Wolfgang Schlueter welcomed James Campbell as the new IAG representative, Axel Nothnagel as the Analysis Coordinator since last October 1, and Chopo Ma as the Analysis and Data Centers representative also since October 1. Paolo Tomasi could not participate in this meeting. Marshall Eubanks could not come and did not respond to messages. Alan Whitney planned to attend but he missed his plane. The board agreed that efforts should be made to contact Marshall Eubanks, and if these were not successful then he would be replaced on the board. 2. Chair's report (Wolfgang Schlueter) These are the events since the last board meeting in July, 1999, in Birmingham: - A paper about IVS was presented at the Birmingham meeting and will be published in the IUGG Travaux. - The board selected a logo design, by vote. - The Annual Report was published electronically in late August, distributed in printed form in September. Copies were sent to all IVS members, plus copies to the EVN and to Australia. - A Joint Working Group on mapping the GPS phase centers was set up after many e-mails, phone calls, and letters. Initial members are Brian Corey (Haystack) and Ed Himwich for IVS, Graham Appleby (UK) and Richard Biancale (CNES) for ILRS, and Tim Sprinter (Berne) and Tom Herring (MIT) for IGS. The first meeting is Wednesday evening. - We have a new Analysis Center from USNO for source structure. The vote to admit them was 8 in favor, 3 against. - Presentations about IVS will be made at the EGS meeting in Nice (April) and at the COSPAR meeting in Warsaw (June). - IVS was represented at the CSTG Executive Committee meetings in Birmingham and in San Francisco by Nancy Vandenberg. In Birmingham, Gerhard Beutler announced that the IAG Executive Committee had officially recognized IVS as a Service of IAG. Hermann Drewes is the new chairman of CSTG. - The General Meeting, which begins tomorrow, was organized through the combined efforts of the Local Committee (myself and Hayo Hase at Wettzell) and the "global" Committee at the Coordinating Center. We have 124 people registered, a number that is greater than 50% of our 230 Associate Members. The program will include tutorials, reports, and analysis results. We will strongly encourage submission of papers for publication in the proceedings. There are splinter meetings scheduled to discuss the next chief's meeting, equipment maintenance, the Working Group, WVRs in Europe, the Analysis Workshop, RFI workshop, and a European group meeting. 3. Coordinators' Reports Coordinating Center report (Nancy Vandenberg) The Coordinating Center maintained and modified the IVS web site during the past six months. The "Data" and "Products" links were moved to the top of the page for visibility. Visitor statistics show more than 5,000 pageviews during our first year. A new data flow diagram (by Carey Noll) shows how files and data flow among the IVS components. Since the last board meeting, major activities of the Coordinating Center have been the publication of the Annual Report and coordination of the General Meeting. Analysis Coordinator report (Axel Nothnagel) A web page for the Analysis Coordinator was set up. Comparisons of EOP results are fairly well automated. A common epoch is needed to do further comparisons. Contributions for the ICRF are needed and we need to improve the delivery time of data. Reminders will be sent to the Analysis Centers. The initial Analysis Workshop is Thursday this week. Network Coordinator report (Ed Himwich) No overwhelming problems exist. We made the Y2K transition without serious problems. Some concerns are: there is no headstack supplier, we lack centralized maintenance, and the antenna at Fairbanks is ageing. Initiatives are: preparing station performance standards, finalizing web-based performance data presentations, doing site visits, encouraging collocation. Performance standards could be ready in 6 months. Brian Corey and myself are doing the Mk4/VLBA, George Feil (CRESTech)will do the S2, and Yasuhiro Koyama (CRL) will do the K4. There was discussion about potential new IVS Network Stations. These include TIGO in South America, Hobart in Australia, the new VERA stations in Japan, and the transportable Canadian station (CTVA). There was also discussion about how IVS could encourage new, regular networks that would use K4 and/or S2 recorders and correlators. Wayne Cannon reported on VSI status. A group meeting at Haystack two weeks ago worked out the final version of the VSI document. New gigabit recorders in Japan (at CRL and NAO) and in Canada will be compliant. It was decided to split the hardware and software specifications; the hardware document is now done. When the final version is signed by the participating group, the IVS Board will review it for endorsement. 4. Terms of Reference A committee proposed changes to the ToR to address issues noted by the Board at its previous meeting. A summary of the changes agreed to at this meeting: - Call the seven types of components (Network Stations, Operation Centers, etc.) "Permanent Components". - Add definitions of Member Organizations and Affiliated Organizations. - Add a "Charter" section at the top and add a reference to IAG there. - Reword the description of the elected Board members to read as follows: The five members of the Directing Board who are elected by IVS Permanent Components must each be a member of a different IVS Member Organization. - Word the description of the Coordinators selection to read as follows: The three Coordinators are selected by the Directing Board on the basis of proposals from IVS Member Organizations. On a two-thirds vote the Directing Board may call for new proposals for any Coordinator when it determines that a new Coordinator is required. Coordinators are encouraged to give at least three months notice before resigning. - The Analysis Centers description as written by Axel Nothnagel was accepted. 5. Cooperation with other groups The Board decided that a letter should be sent to organizations who have expressed an interest in IVS. The letter will invite them to become an Affiliate Member, tell them what IVS does, and ask them to send us their interests so that we can be informed of our common interests. Chopo Ma presented the status of the IERS. The Review Panel will meet after the IAU Colloquium in late March and make its recommendations to the IERS at the AGU meeting. It is hoped that the new IERS board will be active by summer. IVS will have two representatives on the IERS board, 1) for analysis, 2) for observing and coordination functions. Chopo Ma pointed out that there is a unique relation of IVS to IERS in the area of the CRF. It is the responsibility of IVS to provide the CRF to IERS. It is recommended that IVS have a permanent Working Group to do this in association with the appropriate IAU Working Group. Regular submissions to IERS should be directed to IVS. The Board decided that the IVS representatives to the IERS board would be Axel Nothnagel for analysis and Chopo Ma for coordination. Nicole Capitaine will contact IAU to inquire how IVS could be recognized as a service of IAU. The IAU Colloquium 180 will draft resolutions to be presented at the General Assembly this summer. We can consider preparing an IVS resolution to support the ICRF work. 6. Joint Working Group After some discussion the board decided to adopt policies for its Working Groups similar to those for IGS Working Groups: - Charter: The WG has a charter, approved by the Directing Board before the initial WG meeting. - Membership and Chair: The WG has a membership list. The Directing Board appoints the chair from this list. The Directing Board may decide to appoint some of its members as ex officio members, as appropriate. - Autonomous operation: WG operate autonomously under the leadership of the chair. The chair can add members. The chair can also decide to work with other scientific or technical organizations as appropriate to accomplish the goals of the WG. - Reports: The chair prepares at least an annual written report about the activities of the WG. The Board will review the reports at its regular meetings. The board decided that the charter of the first WG would be: The Working Group on Mapping the Phase Centers of GPS Satellites will study the feasibility, equipment, time required, and if it could be done with accuracy sufficient to make it worthwhile. Brian Corey was appointed as chair of the WG. The nominees from all three services will attend the first meeting. 7. Publications Annual Report: The 1999 Annual Report was a special publication, and we should not print another report that contains mostly the same information. The board agreed with the idea of having a report that covers a calendar year of activity. Therefore, the next Annual Report will be for the year 2000 and will cover activities during 2000. Publication will be in early 2001. The Board will discuss the contents of AR 2000 at its next meeting. IVS components will be asked to update the web version of their reports at any time. Technical Notes: The Board approved publication of "IVS Technical Notes" or "IVS Technical Reports". 8. Meetings Shigeru Matsuzaka (GSI) and Tetsuro Kondo (CRL) agreed to seek approval from GSI and CRL to jointly host the next IVS General Meeting in 2002. The next Board meeting will be in August or September, adjacent to the Journee meeting in Paris or the Wegener meeting in Cadiz. 9. Other Business IVS will encourage all Network Stations to become IGS stations.