What's New for Cycle 17 Phase II

For Cycle 17, we have implemented the following changes to APT for preparing Phase II Proposals:

1. COS, WFC3, and STIS supported
2. Enhancements to the Visit Planner
3. New version of Aladin
4. Orbit Allocation displayed
5. Formatted Listing available in APT

1) COS, WFC3, and STIS supported - in anticipation of the upcoming Servicing Mission, we have added support for the new instruments and reinstated support for STIS.

2) Enhancements to the Visit Planner - there have been several updates to the Visit Planner. First, the Visit Planner now caches results (like the Orbit Planner), so you no longer need to rerun the Visit Planner at the start of a new session (unless you have modified the proposal). Second, executed visits now show their actual execution date and links are calculated with this information; you can also see the execution date and Orientation in the Form Editor when the Visit is selected. Third, the date range displayed is now determined based on the requirements/execution status of the proposal.

3) New version of Aladin - we have updated our version of the Aladin software package (from 3.7 to 5.0). The interface between APT and Aladin has NOT changed, but the Aladin window is slightly different, and there are new Aladin features available.

4) Orbit Allocation displayed - the proposal's orbit allocation is now shown on the Proposal Information page, as well as the number of orbits used in the proposal. A warning will be displayed if the proposal is currently over or under allocation.

5) Formatted Listing available in APT - the Formatted Listing (the .pro file) that is available from the web page after your proposal is submitted is now available within APT while you are writing your proposal. Choose File>Export>Export Formatted Listing to write this report to the proposal directory.