The Long Range Plan: Cycle 17 update September 2009 Dave Adler

Current state of the LRP Instrument Orbits WFC3 1941 COS 1235 ACS 543 STIS 544 FGS 87 NIC 96 Total 4446(2) Cycle Orbits 15/16 348 17 4013 Total 4361(1) C16 snaps (NIC) 45 C17 snaps 1338 Total snaps 1383 Visits not in current plan orbits unschedulable 81 no plan windows 60 Miscellaneous (ToO, etc) 292 Total not in plan 433 SMOV not included in totals. Some programs have more than one SI prime. cycle 17 cycle 17 tail D. Adler TIPS – LRP – 17 September 2009

How the Operational LRP was built Cycle 17 runs from August 17, 2009 – Sept 1, 2010 Aimed for 80 orbits/week - historical 3-Gyro average Resulting plan has 10.19 orbits/day in the cycle including “unplanned” visits adds 1.21 orbits/day 11.4 orbits/day  80 orbits/week – full subscription Cycle 17 tail (post-9/1/10) includes 830 orbits Early priorities in the LRP - from HSTMO: SMOV – most pre-cycle, but some planned in cycle EROs – most pre-cycle ERS – 2 programs, 214 orbits finish c15/16 – currently planned: 348 orbits GTOs early, if possible – ~300 orbits cals early, as needed keep programs together when possible D. Adler TIPS – LRP – 17 September 2009

Why are so many Cycle 17 plan windows late? Early Cycle 17 issues SMOV additions/delays caused the start of the cycle to be heavily oversubscribed. 410 orbits of SMOV/science/cals in first three weeks! Solution pushed some things later in cycle: some COS, NIC SMOV was delayed some ERS targets were delayed some high-priority GO science was delayed Why are so many Cycle 17 plan windows late? early priorities forced some C17 GOs to be planned late. need to account for “unplanned” visits (ToO, HOPRs, etc) throughout the cycle. some DD demand for early orbits – Jupiter, Comet, LCROSS, etc. SMOV/ERS-induced “bow-wave” didn’t help issue. D. Adler TIPS – LRP – 17 September 2009

It could get worse… Some “unplanned” science is now entering the plan: Chandra-coordinated science (~100 orbits), ToOs, HOPRs, etc. On-going SI issues require some plan rework: COS FUV planned for the current time frame could move later. When NIC is ready for GO science - visits will be pulled forward when possible. WFC3 “hard” science will soon be enabled. D. Adler TIPS – LRP – 17 September 2009

…before it gets better Early results: weekly orbit counts are encouraging first few post-SMOV flight calendars were packed: SMS week SMOV orbits Sci/Cal orbits Total Aug 31 32 63 95 Sep 7 13 76 89 Sep 14 28 91 Sep 21 18 70 88 Caution with these early results: We’ve not yet been in a northpoint week. fewer SAA-hiders can schedule, subscription will be lower. Early-cycle subscription is always higher: greater visit selection; highly-flexible visits are still available. If high-subscription trend continues: We can pull visits in the tail earlier. Will evaluate after northpoint weeks are scheduled. D. Adler TIPS – LRP – 17 September 2009