AXAF Users' Committee Recommendations to ASC Director AXAF Users' Committee Meeting, July 23-24, 1998 1) Proposal Review and changes for AO-2: a) We recommend that there be mini-chairs meetings for chairs of panels of related science topics (for 1-1.5 hours) on the morning of second day to compare coverage of science topics and overlaps. b) Longer reviews will be needed, particularly as the merging process is expected to be more complicated because of Large Proposals. c) Each panel should be provided the titles, abstracts, and targets for all proposals from other panels, as well as access to information on previously accepted observations (perhaps by WWW access in the panel rooms). d) We recommend that the level of international participation on review panels be increased. e) The ASC should try to choose a higher proportion of panelists with a detailed level of technical expertise and knowledge of X-ray astronomy. f) We recommend that ASC staff, members of the GTO teams, and project science staff be allowed to participate on review panels. g) If possible, no more than one person from a given institution should serve on any one panel. h) The selection of the optimum scientific program is one of the most important functions of the ASC. In order to achieve this, reviewers should have a broad range of scientific expertise and X-ray astronomy experience. The User Support division should solicit a broader range of inputs for choices of panel members, and should include the early participation of the panel chairs. The ASC Director should increase his oversight of the entire review process. All of these suggestions are intended to help increase the professionalism of the review process and its logistics. i) The committee endorses the current policy where panels are allowed to remove targets from proposals. j) In order to simplify report writing, the proposal review forms should include a list of standard phrases for check-off such as: good proposal but a better one was selected for the same target(s); technically unfeasible; etc. 2) Public Relations: Good public relations are critical to the overall success of AXAF, and continued attention should be given to the choice of the first light image in order to maximize its publicity value. 3) Technical Review: a) It should be made clear to the review panels that they are responsible for ensuring the optimum scientific program based not only on the scientific justification but also on their final evaluation of the technical feasibility. b) The committee was divided as to whether or not prior human technical reviews should be required as part of the review. By a 7 to 5 vote, the Committee recommended the continuation of the prior human technical reviews. However, we feel that these reviews should be focussed on flagging those proposals with serious technical concerns, rather than reproducing the technical justification in the proposals or simulating the observations. c) The ASC Director should provide increased oversight of the technical review reports and ensure the quality of their content. 4) Budget (Stage 2) Review: The committee feels that the current Stage 2 review process should continue, at least through AO-2. However, to aid in this process, the Stage 1 scientific review panels should provide a check-off on the level of effort required to accomplish the science goals of each accepted proposals, at three levels: more effort than average, average effort, or less effort than average when compared to other accepted proposals. 5) Large Proposals: a) We recommend that the lower limit on exposure time for Large Proposals should be raised to 300 ksec. b) Proposals in this class should be reviewed in the individual science panels along with the smaller proposals and given grades on the same grade scale. The final decision on the Large Proposals should be made at the Merging Session, after the merging panelists have read the most highly rated Large Proposals. c) The committee recommends that a bogey of 70% of the prorated observing time should be given to the panels, which reserves a minimum of 20% for the Large Proposals with 10% for extra negotiating room in the merging process. d) The panels should have the option to delete targets from Large Proposals. If this results in the large proposal falling below the 300 ksec limit, it can then be judged as a small proposal. 6) Conflicts: The committee recommends that the current definition of conflicts be maintained (i.e., same target, same instrument, comparable time). 7) Director's Discretionary Time: The committee recommends that up to 5% of the total observing time be reserved for ASC Director's Discretionary Time observations, beginning at present. This allocation of time would include non-peer reviewed TOOs. The funding and proprietary period for these data will be left to the discretion of the ASC Director. At future AXAF User's Committee meetings, the committee would like to hear a report from the ASC Director on the use of this time. 8) Data Distribution: The committee would like to receive simulated science data sets as soon as possible, which we understand will be in September 1998. This may be prior to the availability of software for testing. 9) Science Data Analysis: a) We are alarmed and disappointed that there is still no working software available to test by our committee. At our June 1997 meeting, we expressed a clear desire to receive working software by December 1997. At this time we were told that the software would be ready in July 1998. Apparently this deadline has now slipped to November 1998. While this is still before launch, it leaves the committee with little confidence that this new date will be met, and gives us little time to do any useful testing and to provide feedback to the ASC prior to launch. Clearly, it is critical that the overall management of the software effort should be immediately improved. The committee feels that these issues are so important that we will schedule a special meeting in late fall 1998 specifically to review the software release. b) Access to a testing version of the Science Data Analysis system should be made available to the User's Committee as early as possible, with access by physical visits by committee members or their colleagues to the ASC in August 1998, by remote logins to the ASC by September 1998, and by the distribution of binary executables of the software in Solaris and Linux files by October 1998. Travel funds for the ASC visits should be supported by the ASC. c) The committee was unhappy with the lack of responsiveness to our reported problems with the AO-1 proposal preparation software. A plan to improve this software should be presented to the committee. 10) ACIS Pile-Up: The committee recommends that the ASC hold a short workshop on exploring solutions to the pile-up problem. Involvement of other projects facing similar problems (e.g., XMM) would be an advantage. 11) Coordination with other missions: The committee recommends that the ASC should announce, in each NRA, a reasonable deadline for the distribution of the approved target list, and then adhere to this deadline. 12) User Support Group: The User Support Group is the primary interface between the ASC and the scientific community. The Committee is concerned that Users Support has not been sufficiently pro-active in this role, and that the importance of several USG activities (e.g., proposal planning software and the organization of the proposal review process) may have been underestimated by the group. There may be an inadequate level of resources in this group. This will be an increasing problem as the level of support required by the User community increases post-launch.