VLBA Time Allocation Under a New Organization

On 20 November 2015, the National Science Foundation (NSF) selected Associated Universities, Inc. (AUI) to manage the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO) through a new 10-year cooperative agreement. The new agreement includes the operation of the Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (VLA), the North American share of the international Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), and NRAO’s development laboratories and administrative and management functions, effective 1 October 2016.

The Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA), and the Green Bank Telescope (GBT), which were recommended for divestment several years ago, will exit NRAO and become independent facilities known as the Long Baseline Observatory (LBO) and the Green Bank Observatory (GBO).  Associated Universities, Inc. (AUI) will operate LBO under a 2-year cooperative agreement between the National Science Foundation (NSF). 

Because of this reorganization, the 2017A Call for Proposals is now divided into three separate calls for the VLA, LBO, and GBO. This call is for the VLBA, HSA, and GMVA only; the call for GBO can be found here and the call for VLA can be found here.

Large Proposals

The VLBA will continue to support large proposals.  The upcoming completion of the large BeSSeL project will free considerable observing time in the highly coveted Galactic plane parallax slots.  All VLBA proposers that have been contemplating submission of a large proposal are encouraged to do so, or to submit relevant pilot projects that may be useful in shaping a future large proposal.

Continuing Opportunities

The joint observations described below provide opportunities to combine observations with the VLBA and several space observatories operating at very different wavelengths.  Joint observations combining the VLBA with other ground-based VLBI instruments are embedded in the periodic VLBA Call for Proposals, and the VLBA Observational Status Summary.  The following joint observation opportunities will continue in semester 2017A via existing arrangements made through NRAO.

Joint Observations with Chandra X-ray Observatory

In previous semesters, the community has had the opportunity to propose for observing time on NRAO facilities through a joint program with the Chandra X-ray Observatory.  The NRAO would like to alert the community to the fact that, beginning in semester 2016A proposers to the NRAO will have the opportunity to request time on Chandra, to be awarded on the recommendation of the NRAO Telescope Allocation Committee (TAC) and approved by the NRAO Director. Up to 120 ksec will be made available to NRAO proposers annually.  See the Joint Observations with Chandra page for details.

Joint Observations with the Hubble Space Telescope (HST)

By agreement between the NRAO and the Space Telescope Science Institute, STScI will be able to award up to 3% of the available time on NRAO's North American facilities to highly ranked proposals that request time on both HST and NRAO telescopes.  In return, STScI has offered 30 orbits of HST time for allocation by the NRAO TAC to proposals submitted for the NRAO deadlines for Semester 2016B and Semester 2017A.   See the Joint Observations with HST page for details.

Joint Observations with Swift Gamma-Ray Burst Mission

To foster correlative observations, a joint Swift/NRAO observing program has been established, detailed in a Memorandum of Understanding. By this agreement, the Swift Program permits NRAO to award up to 300 kiloseconds of Swift observing time per year.   Similarly, NRAO permits the Swift Guest Investigator (GI) Program to award NRAO observing time.  See the Joint Observations with Swift page for details.

Joint Observations with Fermi Gamma-Ray Space Telescope

We remind the community that it is possible to propose for observing time on NRAO facilities through the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope Joint Proposal Opportunity or the Cooperative Proposal Opportunity.  See the Joint Observations with Fermi page for details.

Joint Proposals Among the LBO, GBO, NRAO and Other Radio Observatories

As part of the inter-observatory agreements establishing the High Sensitivity Array and Global 3mm VLBI Array, a single proposal to either of those extended arrays suffices to request all telescopes for VLBI observations.  However, separate proposals must be submitted for any non-VLBI use of any requested telescopes.

Other Proposal Opportunities

Proposers should keep in mind that the following classes of observations are welcome:

• High Risk Proposals: As a means of maximizing its scientific impact through cutting-edge observations, the Observatory encourages the submission of high-risk/high-reward proposals.
• Commensal Observing: The VLBA has some innate ability to support commensal observing either through clever use of existing infrastructure or through operation of user-supplied capabilities.  It is recommended that interested proposers discuss their ideas with VLBA staff prior to submission in order to develop a plausible program.  Such observations will be subject to resource constraints.
• Filler Programs: Some programs are not time critical, do not require highly subscribed GST ranges, or can usefully observe in multiple brief, randomly-timed sessions. Such programs may be able to take advantage of "filler" time.  Types of projects that might be suitable for VLBA filler time include: surveys of many sources, deep integrations spread over many sessions, and long term monitoring.  It is rare for fewer than 6 antennas to be functional and have good observing conditions as well; high frequency projects that can use a reduced array are therefore viable.  To be eligible for FILLER status the project should be flexible enough to be scheduled:
  

      with non-ideal weather conditions;
      with less than the full complement of antennas;
      with a target list of source positions around the sky; and
      with short duration or variable length scheduling blocks.

  Proposals for filler projects must include the word "filler" in the proposal title.  Teams must provide tools that allow VLBA operations, with minimal effort, to create schedules for arbitrary blocks of time of one hour or longer when such time becomes available during dynamic scheduling.  Large VLBA filler proposals, and multi-semester proposals, will be considered.

Further information about each of these programs can be found here.