par Patrick Hall (MSE Management Group Member)
(Cassiopeia – été 2023)
CFHT Call for Letters of Interest in MSE and MSE Pathfinder Instrument at CFHT
A Call for Letters of Interest was issued on March 17 to participate in the development of the Maunakea Spectroscopic Explorer (MSE) through either the Design and Fabrication of an MSE-Pathfinder Instrument for CFHT for first light in the late 2020s, or the Design of MSE for first light in the late 2030s.
Submissions were due May 1. Four groups expressed interest in the MSE Pathfinder and three in MSE design study work. Discussions with respondents have begun.
The MSE-Pathfinder instrument is proposed to reduce technical risk by demonstrating on-sky the science capabilities of MSE’s primary subsystems and principal software platform while producing shared science data products for the community. In addition, MSE-Pathfinder will utilize MSE’s Program Execution System Architecture framework to validate the envisaged software platform to execute survey planning, scheduling, targeting and fiber allocation, data reduction pipelines, database management, science products archive, and “data-lab” science platform.
Funding Proposals
Results of the $6.5M Canada Foundation for Innovation funding request for wide-field spectroscopic telescope design and development work should be available before the next issue of Cassiopeia is released.
A $0.5M NSF ATI (Advanced Technology & Instrumentation) proposal was submitted in November 2022 for critical technology development for MSE spectrographs (wavelength splitting and pupil slicing) and is under review.
A $4M NSF MRI (Major Research Instrumentation) proposal was submitted Feb. 2023 and is under review, having passed an initial review phase. This proposal will be resubmitted in Nov. 2023 if unsuccessful in the current round.
If an NSF Mid-Scale Innovations Program in Astronomical Sciences (MSIP, $4M-$30M) call is made this year, a proposal to advance the MSE Pathfinder will be submitted.
An NSF Mid-Scale Research Infrastructure-1 (MSRI1, $6M-$20M range) proposal for MSE design work will be submitted Jan 2024. A similar previous proposal was well received (recommended by a review panel to go forward to the next review phase, but the panel was overruled).
MSE Project Office Staffing
Andy Sheinis has been appointed Director of Maunakea Spectroscopic Explorer Programs at CFHT.
Peter Frinchaboy has been appointed as MSE Project Scientist. Peter is a Professor at Texas Christian University in the Department of Physics & Astronomy. He has served in multiple leadership roles as part of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) -III, -IV, and -V over the 17+ years. In SDSS-III, he served as Survey Operations Scientist for the Apache Point Galactic Evolution Experiment (APOGEE). Peter was significantly involved with the survey planning, review, and execution of all sub-surveys of SDSS-IV (eBOSS, MaNGA, and APOGEE-2 surveys) as the SDSS-IV Survey Coordinator. He has also served as part of the SDSS Management and Collaboration committees, the Change Control Board, and the Committee On INclusion in SDSS (COINS).