ALMA NRAO News 2005

ALMA News - 2005

• November 29, 2005: ALMA Town Meeting

  A Town Meeting has been scheduled at 207th AAS Meeting in Washington, D.C.. The purpose of this Town Meeting is to inform the membership of the status of the ALMA Project. By the time of the AAS meeting in Washington, the ALMA Prototype Interferometer at the VLA site will have produced its first fringes, the production antenna contract will have been let, and construction in Chile will have advanced substantially. Further, the North American ALMA Science Center (NAASC) will have begun initial operations in preparation for ALMA Early Science. At this Town Meeting, the progress of ALMA construction and plans for the NAASC and Early Science will be presented, with time allocated for answering questions from the audience. The Town Meeting will be held on Monday, January 9th from 12:30-1:30pm in the Cotillion Ballroom.

• November 1, 2005: ALMA Project Progress Report from October NRAO Newsletter

• October 31, 2005: European ALMA Newsletter (6th Ed.)

• October 05, 2005

  On Wednesday, October 05,2005, the Contractor's Camp kitchen and dining room started operating. This facility is part of the Contractor's Camp interior finishes contract. It has a capacity of 90 seated persons, and cooking capacity of over 500 people.(Pictures are available here.)

• September 15, 2005: ALMA Project Status

  The presentation by the EU ALMA Project Manager Hans Rykaczewski to the European ALMA Board is available in PDF format.

• September 1, 2005: Upcoming NAASC ALMA workshop... From Z-Machines to ALMA: (Sub)millimeter Spectroscopy of Galaxies

  On January 13-14, 2006, the North American ALMA Science Center at NRAO will sponsor a workshop in Charlottesville, VA, on (sub)millimeter spectroscopy of high-redshift galaxies. In the last decade, deep imaging from infrared through radio wavelengths has revealed important populations of distant, dusty galaxies with high rates of star formation and/or accretion. Multiple efforts are now underway to build dedicated, wide-bandwidth instruments ("Z-Machines") that can directly determine molecular emission-line redshifts for sources too obscured to be easily studied at short wavelengths. With ALMA now under construction as well, it is timely to convene a workshop whose goals are:

  • familiarizing the community with the new generation of wide-bandwidth (sub)millimeter spectrometers,
  • highlighting the key scientific questions about dusty high-redshift galaxies that they will be able to address in the near term, and
  • helping the community consider how their observing programs can optimize exploitation of ALMA's unique capabilities on longer timescales.

  The first announcement, a list of confirmed speakers, and web forms for preregistration and abstract submission are available at http://www.cv.nrao.edu/naasc/zmachines/. Students are especially encouraged to attend.

• August 1, 2005: Contract signed for AOS Technical Building

• On 2 August, the contracts for the foundation and shell packages for the ALMA Array Operations Site (AOS) technical building, an NRAO task, were signed at the NRAO/AUI offices in Santiago with Chilean company CON PAX. Mobilization is underway and construction is scheduled to start on 20 September 2005. The foundations are scheduled to be completed on 20 December 2005, and the shell structure is scheduled to be finished on 20 March 2006. This work will mark the beginning of construction for ALMA on the high-elevation site.
  Above: An artist's conception of the appearance of the Technical Building to be constructed at the ALMA Array Operations Site (AOS) at 5000m on the Chajnantor plateau.
  
  (Left): The contract for the foundation and shell of the building was signed 1 August 2005 at the AUI offices in Santiago. Eduardo Hardy (on the right) represented AUI. On the left is Gerardo Palma, Managing Director of CON PAX. (Right): The contract for the foundation and shell of the building was signed 1 August 2005 at the AUI offices in Santiago. Mauricio Pilleux (left) and Eduardo Hardy (right) represented AUI. In the center is Gerardo Palma, Managing Director of CON PAX.

• July 29, 2005: European ALMA Newsletter (5th Ed.)

• July 11, 2005: Announcement of Contract for ALMA Antennas

  The National Science Foundation (NSF) and Associated Universities, Incorporated (AUI), which operates the National Radio Astronomy Observatory for the National Science Foundation, are pleased to announce that on July 11, 2005 AUI signed a contract with Vertex Communications Corporation to purchase up to 32 antennas for the Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA). (AUI Press Release ) (General Dynamics Press Release )

• July 1, 2005: ALMA Project Progress Report from July NRAO Newsletter

• May 19, 2005: ALMA Brochure

  A copy of the NRAO ALMA brochure to be distributed at the 206th Meeting of the AAS (May 29-June 2 2005 in Minneapolis MN) is available via the following link: ALMA Brochure (PDF, 1.1MB).

• April 27, 2005: European ALMA Newsletter (4th Ed.)

• April 1, 2005: ALMA Project Progress Report from April NRAO Newsletter

• January 20, 2005: European ALMA Newsletter (3rd Ed.)

• January 1, 2005: ALMA Project Progress Report from January NRAO Newsletter