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David Murphy (david.w.murphy@jpl.nasa.gov)

31-Oct-06/1-Nov-02

Agenda +

U.S. VSOP-2 Support Plans

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2 31-October-06

Agenda - 31 Oct

• 8:30- 9:00 Arrive at JPL Visitors center, get coffee• 9:00- 9:15 Welcome and Introduction - Murphy• 9:15- 9:45 VSOP-2 Mission Update - Hirax• 9:45-10:00 European plans for VSOP-2 support - Gurvits• 10:00-10:15 U.S. plans for VSOP-2 support - Murphy• 10:15-11:30 Tracking Station Requirements - Murata/Kono

- overall requirements: number and distribution tracking stations- individual tracking station requirements

• 11:30-12:00 ISAS VSOP-2 tracking station - Murata/Kono

• 12:00-1:00 *** Lunch ***

• 01:00-1:30 Potential Spanish VSOP-2 tracking - Lopez Fernandez• station• 1:30-2:00 Potential NRAO Green Bank tracking station - Langston• 02:00-2:30 Potential JPL tracking stations - D'Addario/Jones• 02:30-3:30 VSOP tracking stations lessons learned - Ulvestad/D'Addario/Langston/Smith

• 3:30-4:30 Tracking station design discussion - All

- can we generate a common design?- share components?- place uplink on small nearby antenna?

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3 31-October-06

Agenda - 1 Nov

• 8:30-9:00 Arrive at JPL Visitors center, get coffee

• 9:00-10:00 Tracking station input and output products - Murata/Kono- in: schedule file

- in: frequency predicts

- out: time-correction file

- out: telemetry data file

- out: VLBI data

• 10:00-10:30 Correlator interface issues - Ulvestad

• 10:30-12:00 Future plans - All- Possible scenarios for sharing international tracking of VSOP-2

- A plan for convergence to a tracking plan (actions and schedules)

- Future interactions/meetings of this group

• 12:00-1:00 *** Lunch ***

• 1:00-4:00 Future plans continued /More discussions on tracking station design -All

• 4:00-4:30 Summary

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4 31-October-06

U.S. VSOP-2 Support Plans

• Identify a source of funding in current challenging NASA environment where priorities are being re-directed towards ‘Apollo on steroids’ shuttle replacement vehicle

• Very different situation from when NASA decided to support VSOP

• In general NASA has open competitions for science missions

• Need to find a suitable competition and win selection!• Only game in town appears to be 35 M$ Midex Mission of

Opportunity (MoO)• Our good cards:

- VSOP-2 is already approved in Japan- ARISE decadal report legacy

• Our bad cards:- Relatively small U.S. VLBI community- Currently little support available to prepare proposal

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5 31-October-06

Rough VSOP-2 Midex MoO Timeline

• Sept ‘06 VSOP-2 presentation at JPL to try and getinternal JPL concept study funds• Nov ‘06 JPL decides on concept studies to support• Nov ‘06 - Mar ‘07 Undertake concept study• Mar ‘07 JPL concept study review• Mar ‘07 Draft Midex Proposal released• Apr ‘07-Jan ‘08 Prepare VSOP-2 Midex MoO• Jan ‘08 Submit VSOP-2 Midex MoO• Jan ‘08+ NASA Midex Selection

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6 31-October-06

Possible Uses of 35 M$ MoO Funding

1. Use of NRAO’s VLBA

2. Use of NRAO’s VLBA correlator

3. NRAO Green Bank tracking station

4. 1 or more JPL tracking stations (locations TBD)

5. On-board JPL GPS receiver + GPS analysis support

6. U.S. science support (funding for U.S. PIs, experiment planning software)

7. JPL project office

8. Other - TBD

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7 31-October-06

Concept Study

• What trades will be performed in a concept study?- Determine best of use limited MoO resources

- Determine best distribution of responsibilities between U.S., Japanese, European and other international partners

• What are the top three technical issues that would be addressed?- Design, number, and locations of tracking stations

- GPS/phase-referencing study

- What correlator and VLBA upgrades need to be undertaken to support VSOP-2

• What are the top three programmatic issues that would be addressed?- Sharing of mission responsibilities with Japanese and U.S./international

partners

- ITAR/TAA/MOU issues

- Formation and operation of U.S. MoO team

• What support would you need from outside JPL- NRAO + university support