ILWS Solar Task Group 2008 Report

ILWS Solar Task Group - Charter The Solar Task Group for International Living With a Star has been tasked with cataloging the solar programs around the world that are relevant to the goals of ILWS, providing recommendations about future directions these programs might take, and helping instigate productive collaborations.

ILWS Solar Task Group - Membership # address: Ashok Ambastha Thierry Appourchaux Joan Burkepile Paul Cally Paul Charbonneau Richard Harrison Todd Hoeksema Masayoshi Kojima Vladimir Kuznetsov Marcos Machado Werner Schmutz ChuanYi Tu Stephen White

ILWS Solar Task Group - Activities The ILWS Solar Task Group has not formally met in the last 12 months, but members have exchanged and a meeting of several members was held at the ILWS science meeting in Boulder, CO during the fall of At that meeting we identified three near-term tasks: Task #1: Compile a descriptive list of worldwide ground- based and space based solar instruments & facilities. Task #2: Identify gaps in observations of current and upcoming solar missions and provide an evaluation. Task #3: Identify ways to facilitate programs: how best to get people together to enhance use of resources. e.g. institute-to-institute collaborations, web based tools, stimulation of international agencies to contribute, etc.

ILWS Solar Task Group – Task 1 Catalog: Some of the work for this has been completed for us by an NSF Facilities Assessment solar task group headed by Jeff Kuhn and Hector Socas Navarro. They have compiled a significant, but not complete, online listing of instruments and descriptions available at: (see listing in appendix) In addition for Latin America we have this listing: HASTA (Ha Solar Telescope for Argentina) MICA (Mirror Coronagraph for Argentina) SST (Solar Submillimetric Telescope –Brazil, Argentina) ROI (Itapetinga Radio Observatory - Brazil) BSS (Brazilian Solar Spectroscope - Brazil) BDA (Brazilian Decimetric Array - Brazil) RIS (Solar Radio Interferometer – México We will be adding to this list as we learn of more facilities and projects. Selections for Phase A studies for the NASA Explorer program have recently been announced and NASA's Solar Probe+ is advancing. Solar Orbiter selections have not (as of this writing) been announced. The Chinese Kua Fu mission continues to make progress, but apparently there are some additional alternatives and the schedule is not completely certain.

ILWS Solar Task Group – Task 2 There is a significant strategic planning effort currently underway in the U.S. for NASA, and similar efforts are taking place in Europe. The NASA/Heliophysics Mission Planning Working Group (MiPWG) is revising the 2006 Heliophysics Roadmap and we plan to use their work to help identify some of the major accomplishments over the last few years and to establish some of the needs seen from the viewpoint of the U.S. program. NASA has also recently completed its Senior Review of operating missions, so we have a clearer picture of the ongoing capabilities of the Heliophysics Great Observatory. Our Solar Task Group will evaluate these from an ILWS perspective. The U.S. NRC decadal survey for Astronomy and Astrophysics is just getting underway, and there are plans for a Solar and Space Physics survey a little farther in the future. NASA's Heliophysics missions will be addressed primarily in the Solar and Space Physics survey and one of our aims is to provide meaningful input to that process. Ground-based solar astronomy will likely have more visibility in the Astronomy and Astrophysics Survey.

ILWS Solar Task Group – Task 3 By taking advantage of these strategic planning activities, we can concentrate more of our efforts on Task 3, facilitating programs that encourage collaboration and stimulate progress without requiring significant new resources. These must include promoting interactions of individual scientists, institutes in various countries, and agencies around the world. Opportunities may exist for facilitating travel and short-term visits, sharing data, modeling, and analysis techniques in an open way, promoting interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary research, organizing analysis and observing campaigns, and involving the worldwide research and operations communities in bridging the gap between research and applications. One major opportunity and challenge facing the solar task group in particular is the availability of vast quantities of useful raw data. How can we help encourage open access to important information without bogging down local data analysis systems or the distribution network? Defining summary data products, providing metadata access, developing accessible catalogs, and setting useful standards is something for which we may be able to effectively lobby using existing international institutions, such as COSPAR. Leveraging off successful programs such as the GRID or virtual observatories will be important toward providing efficient access world wide. The Task Group has not discussed options in significant detail, but a variety of approaches merit further discussion.