Rubin Digest 09 June 2020

9 June 2020

Project & Science News

The Rubin Observatory Project leadership team released a statement on June 3rd in response to the ongoing protests against racial injustice. Rubin Observatory condemns discrimination and racism, and is committed to supporting diversity. Read the full statement on our website.

On May 14th, the IT group in La Serena, Chile, enabled the utilization of internal routed traffic in Rubin Observatory's Long Haul Network. This means that a group of clusters, along with Commissioning Camera forwarders deployed at the base, will use this dedicated link to transfer data when the destination is the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA). This work marks an important milestone towards the completion of the Network baseline of Rubin Observatory. Photos are available in the Gallery. 

A regular inspection of the Cerro Pachón construction site took place on May 26th. This visit included more work on the Dome and a detailed inspection of Telescope Mount Assembly (TMA) stored materials, as requested by TMA vendor Asturfeito. An additional visit was made on June 2nd, in preparation for the first winter storm of the season, to make sure everything was properly covered and protected. Another small team made a third visit after the storm and verified that the equipment suffered no damage. Photos from the recent visits are available in the Gallery.

A meeting of the AURA Management Council for Rubin Observatory (AMCR) was held virtually on May 27-28. The AMCR provides oversight and advocacy for the management of the Vera C. Rubin Observatory during construction, and meetings are held quarterly. At the May meeting, the Council commented favorably on the level of work that has been accomplished during the last quarter despite the challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic, and complimented the Project on the initiatives undertaken by the various facilities to support the safety of the team. 

Operations Updates

NOIRLab has published the inaugural issue of The Mirror, a quarterly newsletter which includes information and updates from all of NOIRLab’s facilities, including Rubin Observatory Operations. You can find the newsletter at nationalastro.org.  

On behalf of the Rubin Operations Directorate, the Rubin Science Advisory Committee has formed the Survey Cadence Optimization Committee (SCOC), which will be chaired by Zeljko Ivezic. The SCOC will use the results of extensive simulations of survey strategy and cadence, based on white papers from the community, to form its recommended observing strategy and deliver it to Bob Blum, Acting Operations Director for Rubin Observatory. The SCOC will be a standing committee throughout the life of the survey, and will continue to make recommendations on survey strategy as observations progress. The charge to the SCOC and its membership can be found here.

LSST Corporation News

At this time of strife in the US and around the world, the LSST Corporation re-affirms our commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). A recent grant award of $247,500 from Heising-Simons Foundation will allow us to organize a pair of workshops to build an ambitious program—the  LSST Interdisciplinary Network for Collaboration and Computing (LINCC)—which aims to transform the way the astrophysics community works both scientifically and in terms of DEI. The Heising-Simons grant will empower the LSSTC to utilize the rare opportunity afforded by the creation of a new, community-wide organization to implement, model, and test policies and organizational structures that promote DEI. If you are interested in getting involved in this program, please contact LSSTC's Director for Science, Jeno Sokoloski at jeno@lsst.org or for more information on the Heising-Simons Foundation's commitment to fighting injustice, please visit their website. 

The LSST Corporation Enabling Science 2020 Call for Proposals yielded 15 proposals requesting a total of approximately $200k. A panel of six reviewers will evaluate the proposals in the next few weeks.

Personnel Announcements

Diane Hascall, a member of the LSST Camera team since 2014, will now be taking on a new role with the Systems Engineering team. In addition to her new duties, which will include developing test plans and procedures as part of the Commissioning team, Diane will also continue to work on the shipping of the Camera from SLAC to Chile, and commissioning of the Camera refrigeration system on the summit. Chris Mendez and Martin Nordby will also continue to support the systems engineering team during commissioning along with Diane. 

Upcoming Meetings with Rubin Observatory Involvement

(those with asterisk* are LSSTC funded):

2020

June 16, 17, & 23: Solar System Readiness (Virtual) Sprint 3

July 20-24: LSST DESC Meeting, Virtual

July 21-24: Joint Directors Review (JDR), Virtual

August 10-14: Rubin Observatory Project and Community Workshop 2020, Virtual

Aug 31-Sept 3: Joint Status Review, Menlo Park, CA

Sept 1-3: NSF Large Facilities Workshop, Alexandria, VA

Sept 23-24: AURA Management Council for Rubin Construction (AMCR) Meeting, Boston, MA

December 13-18: SPIE Astronomical Telescopes and Instrumentation Conference, San Diego, CA