HST suffered a serious malfunction on September 27, with a failure of the Side-A Control Unit/Science Data Formatter (CU/SDF) inside the Science Instrument/Control & Data Handling (SI C&DH) system. This prevented data from the science instruments being transmitted to the ground. Failure of Side A CU/SDF places HST in the position of relying on the backup electronics, the Side-B CU/SDF inside the SI C&DH system. As a result, there is no longer redundancy in this critical system. There is a spare SI/C&DH on the ground, and NASA has decided to install the spare unit during SM4. This requires significant testing, replanning, and astronaut training and, as a result, it is expected that SM4 will fly no earlier than April 2009.

Data from the Fine Guidance Sensors (FGS) are not routed through the CU/SDF, so HST has maintained FGS science observations throughout this period. On October 15, HST switched to operations on Side B of the CU/SDF, and later resumed science observations with Wide-Field Planetary Camera 2 (WFPC2) and the Advanced Camera for Surveys Solar Blind channel (ACS/SBC). Efforts are currently underway to restart the NICMOS cryocooler, which has been off since September 11th, except for several short restart attempts.

With the rescheduling of SM4, Cycle 16 will be extended by at least 6 months. We have been steadily exhausting the pool of Cycle 16 observations, and will bring forward as many Cycle 17 programs as possible. However, we do not have sufficient observations in hand to fully schedule this period.

Release Notice

NASA and The Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) announce this Supplemental Call for Proposals for HST Observations for Cycle 16. Participation in this program is open to all categories of organizations, both domestic and foreign, including educational institutions, profit and nonprofit organizations, NASA Centers, and other Government agencies.

This solicitation for proposals will be open through Monday December 08, 2008 11:59pm EST. The proposals will be reviewed by Cycle 16 & 17 Time Allocation Committee (TAC) members. The Astronomer's Proposal Tools (APT) version 17.2.6, which is required for Phase I Proposal Submission, will be released on Monday November 17th and can be downloaded from: http://www.stsci.edu/hst/proposing/apt. Results of the selection will be announced in early January, 2009.

We anticipate allocating 1,000 to 1,200 orbits for an SM4 launch in the mid-April timeframe. If SM4 is scheduled at a later date, the allocation will be increased accordingly. As a guide, HST has typically obtained ~70 orbits of science observations per week in Two Gyro mode.

Submission Criteria

STScI manages the review of HST proposals. The details of the current process have been developed in consultation with the Chair of the Cycle 17 Time Allocation Committee and with the Space Telescope Users Committee, taking into account constraints imposed by the current schedule.

Programs submitted in response to the current call should meet the following criteria:

Proposers may request observations with the following instrument WFPC2, NICMOS, ACS/SBC and/or the FGS. Please note that efforts are currently underway to restart the NICMOS Cooling System (NCS). Proposers should monitor the "Late Breaking News" Section of this webpage throughout the release period to verify NICMOS's status.
We will consider two types of programs:
- Large programs, that request at least 75 orbits;
- Smaller programs that offer innovative ways of addressing high impact science issues and/or high science risk/high science return programs. Past examples of the latter category include searching for absorption features due to transiting (and non-transiting) exoplanets, observations of Jovian satellites to search for optical and ultraviolet fluorescence, and pilot investigations of novel techniques for identifying high redshift galaxies.
We intend to protect the scientific integrity of Cycle 17 programs. Consequently, supplemental programs that propose observations of Cycle 17 targets in similar wavelengths must be flagged as duplicates, and must be explicitly justified in their supplemental proposal. The TAC will be asked specifically to adjudicate on any such duplications.
The proposed observations should involve as few constraints (scheduling requirements) as possible to permit maximum scheduling flexibility.
Accepted programs will not be extended beyond SM4, and will therefore not displace any approved Cycle 17 programs. Targets must therefore be accessible to HST in Two Gyro mode between February 2009 and May 2009 (see the link below for the appropriate sky visibility plots).
The scheduling constraints inherent in Two Gyro mode operations will make it very difficult to schedule programs that concentrate on only a few targets. Preference will be given to programs with targets that are well distributed over the accessible viewing region.
No Pure Parallel programs should be submitted.
No Archival Research programs should be submitted.
No Long Term programs should be submitted.
No Joint Coordinated Observing programs should be submitted.
No Special Category (Treasury, Survey, Calibration) programs should be submitted.
Proposals must be submitted via APT as Cycle 16 GO programs or Cycle 16 SNAPSHOT (SNAP) programs.
Proposers should use the Regular program page limits of 3 Pages for Science Justification and 8 pages total regardless of the number of orbits.
Programs will have a default proprietary period of 12 months .
We intend to fund these programs at levels comparable to GO and SNAP programs seleted during a standard cycle, to the extent that NASA funding permits. Successful PIs will be informed of the schedule for budget submission for review by the Financial Review Committee.
Given the time constraints, we will not require proposers to submit full target lists. You should use the Observation Summary section of APT to describe a typical observation for a representative subset of the targets. A general text description of the target list and proposed observations should be provided in the 'Scientific Justification' and 'Description of the Observations' section(s) of the proposal.
The standard Director's Discretionary time submission process will continue to be available through SM4 for time-critical programs.

Review process

A Time Allocation Committee, largely comprising TAC members and panel members from the Cycle 16 and 17 reviews, will review the submitted proposals. Each proposal will be graded independently by a subset of the committee. If necessary, the TAC will meet remotely to decide the final ranking, before making their recommendations to the STScI Director. Due to time constraints, it is unlikely that we will be able to provide substantial written feedback to proposers.

The reviewers for each proposal will span a broad range of scientific expertise. Consequently, it is essential that proposals are written for non-specialists.

Late Breaking News

01/14/09

Congratulations to successful proposers for the Supplemental Call. You can find the Supplemental Call Phase II Proposal Instructions at Cycle 16 Phase II Proposal Instructions

12/05/08
Page limits are 3 pages for Science Justification regardless of the number of orbits, refer to Submission Criteria #13 above.
ACS/SBC red leak:
Proposers should be aware that although the visible light rejection of the SBC is excellent, stars of solar type or later will have a significant fraction of the detected flux coming from outside the nominal wavelength range of the detector. For details of this "red leak", proposers should consult the ACS Instrument Handbook for Cycle 17, Sections 4.4.2 and 5.5.2.
CTE on WFPC2:
Proposers for WFPC2 should be aware that charge transfer efficiency (CTE) has degraded the performance of WFPC2. The extent of the degradation depends on several afctors, notably the background level. Proposers should use the tools at:
http://www.stsci.edu/hst/wfpc2/software/wfpc2_cte_calc.html
to estimate the extent of CTE for the appropriate background/total light in their proposed observations.

11/20/08
In mid-September the NICMOS Cooling System (NCS) failed to restart after a planned shut down. A few days later, two additional attempts were made to restart the NCS. These attempts also failed. At that point a decision was taken to delay further attempts at starting the system until its internal components had warmed as much as possible in the Hubble environment. This condition was reached a few days ago and another attempt to start the system was made on 18 November. This attempt has also failed. Further steps to revive the NCS may be considered and attempted, but there is not likely to be any additional information prior to the Dec. 8 deadline for Supplemental proposals. Proposals to use the NICMOS in this Supplemental period will be accepted, reviewed, and graded by the TAC. Approved proposals will be scheduled for observations if the NCS and NICMOS are returned to operation sufficiently in advance of SM4. Supplemental programs will not carry over into Cycle 17.

A note on innovative proposals: All research is innovative at some level. However, in the present context we are calling for programs that use novel methods or observing strategies to push the boundaries of HST science and offer a high payoff, if successful. We will be instructing the TAC accordingly on these issues.

11/19/08

Science Justification Templates for Cycle 16 Supplemental proposals can use the Cycle 17 templates.

11/18/08

Two Gyro visibility tool links on the Two Gyro page have been updated.

Schedule

17 November 2008: Issue Supplemental Call for Proposals
8 December 2008: Deadline for Supplemental Phase I Proposals
14 January 2009: Distributed PI Notifications
27 January 2009: Phase II deadline for Supplemental Proposals

Documentation

The Cycle 16 documentation is appropriate to the current instrumentation onboard HST.
The Cycle 16 Call for Proposals describes the policies and procedures for submitting a HST Phase I proposal. Get the CP as: PDF [US Letter Size], PDF [A4 Size], or as HTML.
Sky Visibility Plots for the time period of February 2009 - May 2009.
Available Science Time tool for the cycle 16 supplemental call is at: http://www.stsci.edu/hst/HST_overview/TwoGyroMode/AllSkyInformationCycle16A
And the corresponding Detailed Visibility Tool is at: http://www.stsci.edu/hst/HST_overview/TwoGyroMode/AllSkyWindowCycle16A
The Primer provides an introductory overview of the Hubble Space Telescope and explains how to calculate the appropriate number of orbits for an observing proposal. Get the Primer as: PDF [US Letter Size], PDF [A4 Size], or as HTML.
The Two Gyro Science Web page has been updated to support this call for more detailed information about Two Gyro Science Observing.
HST Phase I Roadmap A step-by-step guide to proposing and submitting an HST proposal.
Science Justification Templates for Cycle 16 Supplemental proposals can use the Cycle 17 templates.