SMOV4

A plan for verification and preliminary calibration during SMOV4 of a repaired STIS is currently being developed. It is expected that the SMOV4 plan for STIS will focus on ensuring that observers can obtain data of sufficient quality to meet their scientific goals. Some of the more time consuming calibration observations that will not affect the planning of observations and which can be applied retroactively, (e.g., high signal-to-noise pixel-to-pixel flats and high precision sensitivity determinations for all central wavelength settings), will be deferred until after the end of SMOV, and will be included in the Cycle 17 calibration plan. As a result the initial calibration precision for STIS data products delivered early in Cycle 17 may be significantly less than that which will ultimately be obtainable when the final calibration reference files become available for those observations. Significant updates to the calibration will be announced on the STIS web page and reported in STIS Space Telescope Analysis Newsletters (STANS).

A detailed list of Phase II proposal numbers and titles is now available for STIS SMOV4 activities see the table of activities given below.