1. LBTI HOSTS Science Operations Plan Draft 0 – Feb 26 2015 0

2. Science Plan Overall goal. – The agenda has Bertrand presenting performance relative to science need, so some of it will be covered. Target list. – Selection criteria. – Demographics of the list (#stars, types, fluxes). Estimated number of targets/types in plan. – This requires that “the plan” be clearly defined at this point in the presentation (e.g. 35 FGK stars only or whatever). Maybe show a basic schedule FY15-17 with: science validation phase, notional runs per semester, science team outputs, etc (see slide 12). Targets/types we will *not* have time for in plan. – This is the bad news but also the reason for requesting more HOSTS nights that were invested in commissioning … probably belongs elsewhere? 1

3. Summary of Roles (see PLRA section 3.1) UA: – Principal Investigator and interferometer development. – Interferometer operations. – Conduct the HOSTS survey. – Data pipeline. NExScI: – Data transfers and archive. – Data and browse products to instrument and science teams via archive. – Public data distribution when periods of exclusive use expire. UA+NExScI: co-lead the HOSTS science team and define the optimum survey, coordinate the analysis & modelling, and the publication of science results. 2

4. HOSTS Scheduling Overview of the selection/allocation process. Times of year for semesters A & B proposal solicitations, TACs, notification of awards, scheduling of telescope time. Estimated xx HOSTS runs per semester, estimated yy HOSTS nights each run. PI will distribute the semester schedule to science/instrument team and nexsci/JPL. 3

5. HOSTS Observing Preparation PI/PS lead telecon with science team xx days prior to each run. Output: prioritized list of targets for the run. Observing plan prepared by UA/nexsci. If applicable, includes also plan to continue testing/refining instrument performance. Includes contingencies to adapt in real time to weather & instrument conditions. Output: observing plan published in Google doc and instrument sequencer target list including calibrators delivered xx days prior to start of each run. – Calibrators selected using well established criteria and tools (e.g. SearchCal, getCal). Daytime/nightime instrument checkout. LBTI and AO. Checklists? Daily “afternoon telecon” during the run to assess status and refine the science plan for the night accordingly. Comment: We may need to be more specific as to who is responsible for what. 4

6. HOSTS Observing & Staffing LBTI: – Xx instrument team members for: AO operations, LBTI operations. – Remote observing facility at Steward Obs. LBTO: – Telescope operators – AO expert on-call – Other? Anomaly responses? During the night – maintain science observing log – record/transmit any observatory issues that may need resolution (describe the issue track system?). – Real time LBTI diagnostics tools? E.g. quicklook null estimates or other quantities? 5

7. HOSTS post-Observing Observing log and nightly summary available to science/instrument team, nexsci/JPL after each night. Observing run report distributed to science/instrument team, nexsci/JPL xx days after end of each run, including: – Science goals achived. – Instrument performance tests/improvements if applicable. – Time on sky, lost to weather, lost to facility. – Seeing stats. – Instrument data trending? (nexsci archive browse plots may be useful for this? / the PLRA actually mentions this as a nexsci responsibility although I suspect it is in there with GO in mind). 6

8. HOSTS Raw (level 0) Data Transfers From PLRA req 4.2.2-1: Describe process to make that happen – Automatic transfers from mountain to UA (Elwood). – NASA files permissions assigned automatically based on PID, semaphore signals presence of new data. – Nexsci script to catch new NASA data. – Details in UA/NExScI ICD. 7

9. HOSTS Data Pipeline Level 0  Level 1  Level 2 Developed by UA with contributions from science team members. IDL code. Placed under configuration control – Describe SVN site or whatever. – Possibility to port to compiled language and/or parallelized cores to run faster. Pipeline run by UA LBTI Instrument Scientist. – Expect transfer of knowledge to nexsci, in order to increase the robustness of the process. Products delivered to NExScI. Comment: Denis is on the agenda to describe “measurement approach”. If that does not include description of the pipeline, then here we need to remind what is meant by level1,2 data. Draw content from Data Management Plan. Comment: we should probably mention configuration management for instrument sw as well somewhere … 8

10. From PLRA req 4.2.2-2 and 3: Describe process to make that happen. – Pipeline deposits new files & semaphore in specified UA location. Nexsci script to get newly deposited L1/L2 files. – Details in UA/nexsci ICD. Includes versioning of data reductions, to allow for updates into the nexsci archive as knowledge of the instrument and analysis methods are improved. – Expect ensemble re-calibration at the end of the project, for uniformity of last data release. 9

11. Science Ops System Summary We could make a flow diagram (boxes, arrows) showing the whole process w. inputs/outputs: proposal solicitation/selection, time allocation, observing prep, pipeline, data products etc. 10

12. HOSTS Science Maybe we describe the completion of the science goals in terms of the science team deliverables we defined: 11

13. Reference Documents Target list Weinberger et al. ApJ paper. Revised PLRA 2014. Data Management Plan. UA/NExScI ICD. LBTI/LBTO ICD? 12