Summary Notes from the Eighth IVS Directing Board meeting Haystack Observatory, October 7, 2002, 0900-1730 Notes by N. Vandenberg Attending: W. Schlueter, K. Kingham, H. Schuh, A. Nothnagel, A. Whitney, P. Tomasi, A. Niell, S. Matsuzaka, C. Ma, E. Himwich, Y. Koyama, N. Capitaine, N. Vandenberg 1. Welcome J. Campbell and W. Cannon were not able to attend due to other obligations. W. Schlueter expressed thanks to all within IVS for the success of the new observing program that now supplies two weekly series. It is nice to have the Annual Reports coming out on time, Proceedings available for the General Meetings, and Newsletters -- they give IVS good visibility in the community. Thanks for progress on the Mk5 -- it is real. 2. Reports including discussion 2.1 Chair (Wolfgang Schlueter) Meetings attended: IGGOS planning meeting (Washington), CSTG (Nice), GVWG (Maastricht) New components: The Hobart station in Tasmania was accepted in May 2002. New member organizations: TIGO partners in Chile accepted March 2002. Resigned members: Keystone stations Miura and Tateyama in March 2002. 2.2 Coordinating Center (Nancy Vandenberg) Activities of the Coordinating Center since the last board meeting: regular coordination and updating of the master schedule; establishment of "down station" policy in which the Coordinating Center informs schedulers when to remove a station from a schedule; establishment of a one-week lead time for Operation Centers posting schedules on the Data Centers; monitoring the processing factors and delay time between observing and results for R1 and R4 series; coordination of CONT02; support for Mk5 testing and deployment. Publications: Annual Report 2001, Proceedings of GM2002, and Newsletter issues for April and August. Station upgrade coordination: Algonquin upgrade to VLBA4 completed in August, Hobart upgrade to Mk4/5 planned before end of 2002, Fortaleza upgrade to Mk4 is coming. Planned activities: DB elections to be completed before the next meeting; December Newsletter; Annual Report 2002; TOW in June 2003; web site updates. 2.3 Analysis Coordinator (Axel Nothnagel) Operations: combination of data from 1999 to now are done; added residuals per year and session ID; new web page layout. Combination of data from 1984 to now is in its first version, to be improved. Investigations: Results of R1 vs R4 are being analyzed. Analysis Research Project (ITRF2000/ICRF fixed) is being analyzed, final report due in 4-6 weeks. Organization: Last Analyais Workshop (AW3) was at Tsukuba, the next is planned for April 3-4 at Paris Observatory (AW4). Sinex 2.0 was announced following discussion at AW3, and it is a good basis for combination results. Calc/Solve port to Linux is being worked on at Goddard, the graphics package at Leipzig, and the data base replacement is under discussion. The implications of IAU2000 resolutions need discussion. We will still continue to produce polar motion and nutation offsets relative to the 1980 model but also use the new nutation model and non-rotating origin for celestial pole XY components. 2.4 Network Coordinator (Ed Himwich) CONT02: A station test plan was written and distributed to the stations. Performance of most stations as monitored at the correlators is ok. Severe problems got attention: Onsala's LO, Ny Alesund's phase cal and recorder, Algonquin's spurs. Station performance data collection continues but the statistics are not up to date yet; this will be completed for the Annual Report. The 10-15% overall data loss seems to be continuing. Major data loss problems were due to Fortaleza missing 6 weeks due to receiver problems, Onsala's bad LO, and Ny Alesund overwriting tracks. 2.5 Technology Coordinator (Alan Whitney) VSI-S is completed except for an extension to multi-port DTS. Single-port mode has been implemented already by CRL and Canada. VSI-E issues include formatted vs. unformatted data, multiplexing standards, data identification and configuration information, and time tags. VSI-E is evolving much faster than anticipated. Factors encouraging VLBI2010 development: RFI, DSN going to X/Ka (32 GHz), aging antennas, technology advances in disks and e-VLBI. Goals of VLBI2010: unattended observing, global coverage, electronic data transfer, near real-time correlation. Advantages of X/Ka: eliminate S-band RFI, smaller antennas ~12m for $150k, spanned bandwidth 4 GHz. Concerns in the US: retirement of current practitioners, reduced support for VLBI technology development by sponsoring agencies. Mk5 status: 22 Mark5P systems deployed, processing ongoing at 3 correlators, routine piggyback for Intensives, 24-hr sessions recorded at Medicina and Westford and being processed at Haystack, WACO, Bonn. Westford will record Mk5-only in CONT02 and the Intensives will be Mk5-only during CONT02. A test of 512 Mb/s between Westford and Wettzell was performed. Disk media cost is now $1.25/GB, about half the cost of a thin tape. The least cost per bit right now is the 120 GB disks. E-vlbi updates: E-vlbi was demonstrated at 1Gb/s between Westford and GGAO. Data was transmitted to Haystack at 800 Mb/s after recording at GGAO. The first inter-continental e-VLBI experiment is October 8 between Westford and Kashima34. Data will be transferred both ways and correlated at both Haystack and Kashima. USNO is installing a gigabit Ethernet connection in November. A demonstration Kokee-Wettzell test at 150 Mb/s to Haystack is planned. 2.7 Atmosphere Pilot Project (Harald Schuh) The Pilot Project was discussed at the previous board meeting, proposed to the boad via e-mail, and accepted in April 2002. There are 6 Analysis Centers that agreed to take part, 5 started with GPS week 1147, and are now at week 1180. No data received from GSFC yet. Comparisons follow each other on the hourly wet zenith delay quite well. These plots will be put on the web page for the project. The combined results look good, with 1-hr resolution (IGS has 2-hr), errors < 2 mm. Summary files for each Analysis Center are provided, giving quality of results and overall results. Plots of comparison with IGS are on the web page also. We would like to get 2-3 more Analysis Centers for better statistics. Comparison between IGS and IVS at collocated sites still show offsets. 2.8 CORE panel report (Arthur Niell) A review of the CORE concept (i.e. continuous VLBI measurements) was called in February 2001 by John LaBrecque (NASA Headquarters). A summary was written of the CORE panel meeting, a review of recommendations for NASA was written, and a numerical study was done of EOP precision. Most recently a revised CORE proposal was written that went beyond the CORE panel focus, empahsizing that we must take data that is as good as possible for future improvements in models, i.e. retroactive improvements. The revised proposal was for an 8-station/5-days-a-week program with 3-4 of the days being rapid turnaround. 3.0 Experience with the new observing program Observing Program Committee (OPC) (Nancy Vandenberg) Activities and discussions: Early R&D sessions planned for high SNR; monitoring R1/R4 correlator performance; proposal policy and data policy approved by board; SELENE contacts discussed but not understood; extensive discussion of 2003 observing plans; 14 vs 16 channel results and report; R1/R4 comparisons. R1/R4 processing factors and time delays have been fairly steady since the first quarter of 2002. Overview of 2003 observing plan includes the following changes from 2002: 7-station sessions for R1 and R4, additional CRF sessions. All other observing will remain at the same level as 2002 because the correlators limit the amount of observing that can be done. There has not been any improvement in efficiency as was anticipated. A. Whitney and N. Vandenberg will develop a written plan for Mk5 deployment and implementation. The S2 group operating the E3 sessions had some start-up problems with the system, though now things are going smoothly. The network is very non-homogenous, making it hard to schedule effectively. The network may be better for TRF than competitive EOP results. Another staion is needed to strengthen the network. The K4 Intensives are being observed between Tsukuba-Wettzell. There were 2 test days in July and 18 during the rest of the year. The results fit into the band of C04 a prioris. Other comparisons will be done. Next year 20 days next year for the K4 Intensives are assured at Tsukuba. IVS could request more days. A. Whitney will propose a new working group to write a "VLBI2010" report. 4. IAG, IAU, FAGS, IUGG topics 4.1 IAG nomination of IVS representation as candidate A candidate from IVS should be nominated to possibly be voted on by the IAG Council. Nominees from the 8 IAG services are given to the Nominating Committee. The Committee selects 6 names, and the Council elects 3 of them to be on the Executive Committee of IAG. H. Schuh was nominated, seconded, and elected by the board as the IVS nominee. W. Schlueter will send his name to the Nominating Committee. 4.2 IAU meeting 2003 Sydney A Joint Discussion at the IAU General Assembly is titled "Joint Discussion 16: ICRF Maintenance and Future Realization". C. Ma was requested to give an invited talk at the session. Co-chairs of the Joint Discussion are F. Mignard and D. McCarthy. The IAU General Assembly is 13-26 July 2003 in Sydney. 4.3 FAGS support IVS received a letter from the FAGS president, David Pugh, stating that FAGS would not be able to provide monetary support to its services any more. This is because ICSU (International Council for Science) is not providing FAGS with any more funds. 5. IVS internals 5.1 Elections for the next term There are 5 Directing Board members to be elected for the next term. All can be re-elected for a second term except W. Cannon who has already served two terms as At Large member. The new board members will be the representative for Correlators and Operation Centers two Network Station representatives, and two At Large members. A. Niell, H. Schuh, and N. Vandenberg were appointed by the Chair to serve as the election committee. 5.2 Meetings The "New technologies in VLBI" meeting is November 5-8 in Korea. Attendees from the board are A. Whitney, W. Schlueter, and E. Himwich. The next Analysis Workshop 4 (AW4) is April 3-4 (Thursday-Friday) at Paris Observatory, prior to the EGS meeting. A workshop may be held April 2 at Paris for Occam practitioners. The EGS meeting starts Monday April 7 in Nice. The second IVS TOW (Technical Operations Workshop) will be held at Haystack June 2-5. The next annual e-VLBI workshop will be in Europe in spring 2003, probably at Dwingeloo, during the week of May 12. About 1 month before that, at Haystack, will be a US meeting including networking people. The General Meeting in February 2004 in Canada is being planned. The VLBA 10th anniversary meeting will be in Socorro in June 2003. There may be a talk about results of using the array for geodesy. 5.3 Publications The next Annual Report call will be sent in December for the 2002 report. Contributions to the Newsletter and suggestions for articles are always welcome. A team was appointed to work on a new VLBI brochure. It should be a brochure about geodetic and astrometric VLBI, published by IVS. A draft should be prepared for the next board meeting.