3.8 Guaranteed Time Observer Programs
NASA has generally awarded a portion of the observing time in the years following the installation of a new instrument to those scientists involved in the development of this instrument. The interests of these Guaranteed Time Observers (GTOs) are protected through duplication policies, as described in Section 5.2.1. The COS GTO team has 551 orbits available for use in Cycle 17 (see http:////www.stsci.edu/hst/proposing/docs/COS-GTO).
WFC3 is a NASA-built instrument, with no associated GTO team and no GTO science program. However, the WFC3 Science Oversight Committee is pursuing an Early Release Science Program using DD time (see http://www.stsci.edu/hst/proposing/docs/WFC3-ERS). Observations obtained for the ERS program will be non-proprietary and available for incorporation in other GO proposals (see Section 3.4.5).
