Chandra Remote Proposal Submission (RPS)

Electronic submission of proposal information (name, institution, targets, etc.) as well as the scientific justification is required to reduce the overhead in processing the proposals.

RPS comes in two flavors: a WWW version(but only for browsers that support Forms) and an e-mail server. Either version may be used to submit the proposal forms and justification.

WWW version:

The WWW version provides a form-based interface to the proposal processor. Links exist for help for each page of the form and for each parameter to be entered.

The blue triangles (left side of first RPS page) toggle between a collapsed page (the initial appearance) and an expanded page. If you have several targets, RPS will work faster if you keep only one target at a time expanded. Depending on the speed of your internet connection, you may want to consider using the e-mail version if you have several targets.

Generic help for RPS is available here.

Remember: the WWW version is stateless, which means nothing is done with the entries you have supplied UNTIL you, the user, carry out an action (such as saving the form). Be certain to save your form entries often. You can save the html file to your local disk and reload it either using the browser File->Open capability or the Reload button on the RPS form for older browsers.

General Instructions for WWW RPS:

Enter the proposal data into the RPS form.
Save the proposal data often! For this, use the Save button on the RPS form. The form will be saved as an HTML file on a disk at the user's site so it can be re-loaded at any time.
Verify the proposal data for completeness and accuracy. For this, use the Verify button on the RPS form.
Save the 'verified' proposal data to a local disk. For this, use the Save button on the RPS form.
Submit the proposal to the SAO/Chandra X-ray Center. For this, use the Submit RPS Form button on the RPS form which will be activated once the proposal has been successfully verified. Pressing this button should be done only once per proposal. After submitting, be sure to use the PDF button to save a hardcopy of your proposal parameters for future reference.
Finally, upload the Science Justification as a PDF file to the Chandra X-ray Center.The Science Justification file may not exceed 10Mbytes. You may use the Upload Science Justification button on the RPS form or use the ftp instructions below.
- File naming conventions for Proposal Science Justification, Previous Chandra and CV files.
```
  nnnnnnnn_flast_sj.pdf 
  nnnnnnnn_flast_pc.pdf 
  nnnnnnnn_flast_cv.pdf 
```
  Where:
```
  nnnnnnnn = 8 digit proposal number 
  f        = initial of first name
  last     = last name
  sj       = science justification
  pv       = previous chandra
  cv       = CV (Curriculum Vitae)
```
  The proposal number is provided in the "Proposal submitted successfully" message that is displayed after the "Submit RPS Form" button has been pressed. It is also displayed on the bottom of the first page of the PDF file of the RPS form that you should create after a successful "Submit". The proposal number can also be found in the Chandra RPS Proposal Receipt that is emailed to the user.
- FTP Instructions:
```
  >ftp cxc.harvard.edu

  Name: anonymous
  Password: your_email_address

  ftp> cd /pub/rps
  ftp> bin
  ftp> put nnnnnnnn_flast_sj.pdf   
  ftp> quit

  
```
  Note: Users will not be able to see what they have submitted through the FTP port. The permissions have been set so that the anonymous user can only "put" a file. Users do not have permission to overwrite existing files. If you have made an error that you discovered after submission, you can resubmit provided that you use a new name and that you contact the CXC through the HelpDesk link on the main Chandra WWW page (http://cxc.harvard.edu) or through email at cxchelp@head.cfa.harvard.edu .
  
  If you use LaTeX for your PDF scientific justification, we suggest you create a PDF file in one of two ways.
  1) Use a latex installation which allows you to create PDF files directly from the .tex file (e.g. pdftex). Some installations of pdftex do not allow you to include postscript figures. In this case you might use method (2).
  2) Use ps2pdf (preferably version 1.4) to convert a postscript file to PDF.
```
latex file.tex
dvips -t letter -Ppdf -G0 -o file.ps file.dvi
ps2pdf14  file.ps file.pdf
```
  We suggest one of these methods because most proposal reviewers will be reading your Scientific Justification on a computer screen using a PDF viewer. By default, a document produced with LaTeX uses so-called cm fonts, which differ significantly from any of the standard Type1 fonts built-in to PDF. PDF uses low-resolution bitmap images of these fonts to display the document. It prints well, but shows degraded resolution on the screen.

Access WWW Chandra RPS

E-mail server:

Instructions for using the e-mail server may be obtained by sending the following lines in the body of the message to: rps@head.cfa.harvard.edu . Please be sure to send your messages as plain text.

The response will be an ASCII file of instructions (about 1 page in length) that describes how to construct a mail file to obtain a blank version of the parameter_field_name: answer file, how to obtain a LaTeX version of the proposal forms, how to verify your entered answers, and how to submit the final version of the forms.

The Chandra X-Ray Center (CXC) is operated for NASA by the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory. 60 Garden Street, Cambridge, MA 02138 USA. Email: cxchelp@head.cfa.harvard.edu Smithsonian Institution, Copyright © 1998-2024. All rights reserved.