1.2 New and Important Features of Cycle 15
- Cycle 15 will start in July 2006 and have a duration of one year.
- HST switched to two-gyro operations on 29 August 2005, and will continue to operate in this mode in Cycle 15. Until Cycle 14, HST used three gyros of the six installed to provide accurate pointing information. The decision to switch to two-gyro operations is designed to extend HST's useful operational lifetime. On-orbit tests indicate that there is very little degradation in image quality, and hence scientific performance, while the overall observing efficiency is generally degraded by less than 5%; however, there are significantly tighter constraints in scheduling individual observations, and observers should use the information in the Two-Gyro Handbook and the web-based tools on the Two-Gyro Web Page or the APT (the Astronomer's Proposal Tool; see Section 1.4.6) to check the viability of their observing strategy. Full details of two gyro operations are given in the HST Two-Gyro Handbook.
- The Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph (STIS) suspended operations on 3 August 2004. STIS will not be available for scheduling in Cycle 15. Proposals to use STIS should not be submitted.
- Proposers submitting multi-cycle proposals should assume two-gyro operations for Cycles 16 and 17.
- Experience with Cycle 14 proposals has shown that scheduling in Two-Gyro mode can be problematic. To help alleviate those problems, and to help assure that the proposed observations can be completed within the allocated time, we have revised the orbit visibility values (see Table 6.1 of the Primer). Please be sure to take these new values into account when determining orbit requests.
The following features also deserve special mention, but have not changed since the last cycle:
- The Phase I proposal deadline for Cycle 15 is 27 January 2006; in Cycles 1 to 12, the deadline was in September. Since the start of the cycle continues to be in July, this change shortens the time interval between the submission of observing proposals and the scheduling of the observations. This has important advantages. The pace of discoveries in astronomy has quickened and the possibility of writing proposals closer to the beginning of the observing cycle will allow the latest developments to be folded fully into the current round of proposals. Also, it is now possible to write proposals based on data obtained early in the current observing cycle, thus making cogent follow-up observations more likely.
- Starting in Cycle 12, a java-based software tool, APT (the Astronomer's Proposal Tool; see Section 1.4.6) is the interface for all Phase I and Phase II proposal submissions for HST. Please refer to Chapter 7, Chapter 8 and Chapter 9 for a description of how to prepare and submit your Cycle 15 Phase I proposal using APT. The Phase I LaTeX templates that have been in use for many years are no longer accepted.
- The instruments offered for observations in Cycle 15 are: the Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS); the Fine Guidance Sensor (FGS); the Near Infrared Camera and Multi-Object Spectrometer (NICMOS); and the Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2 (WFPC2). ACS was installed on HST in March 2002 during servicing mission SM3B. NICMOS resumed operations after the installation of a cryo-cooling system. Those instruments are working nominally at the time of writing this document (October 2005).
- STScI experience with scheduling Large and Treasury Programs in Cycles 11 through 14 has shown that some programs can introduce substantial difficulties in developing an effective and efficient long-range observing schedule. Proposers submitting Large and Treasury Programs are asked to include additional technical details (e.g., orient constraints, tiling strategy for large mosaic programs and time constraints) in the "Description of the Observations" section (see Section 9.2) to provide information on the scheduling aspects of their program.
- In addition to the proposal categories that have existed for many cycles, STScI continues to solicit proposals in the categories of 'Treasury Proposals' (see Section 3.2.5), 'Theory Proposals' (see Section 3.4.4) and 'Legacy AR Proposals' (see Section 3.4.2), all of which were started successfully in Cycle 11. Also, it remains possible to request observing time on Chandra (see Section 3.5), NOAO telescopes (see Section 3.6) and Spitzer (see Section 3.7) in combination with requests for HST observations.
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