Proposal Solicitation, Planning, and Scheduling
The opportunity to propose for Webb observations will be open to the
international astronomical community. We anticipate that the first Call
for Proposals will be issued approximately 1 year before launch. The
first year of science observations will be roughly split 50/50 between
General Observers and Guaranteed Time Observers, with the GTO portion
ramping down over the next two years.
As with Hubble, Chandra, and Spitzer, proposals
requesting Webb resources will have to go through the steps of proposal
preparation, proposal selection, and observing plan scheduling.
Proposal Solicitation and Preparation
The STScI will
widely advertise proposal opportunities and will provide
user-friendly documentation and proposal tools. The advanced
Proposal Planning Tools (PPT) will allow the user to completely
specify their observations with their proposal, in spite of the
special scheduling constraints of JWST. The goal is to largely
eliminate the Phase 2 observation specification normally needed after proposal
selection. Proposal Selection
Just as with Hubble, Webb proposals will be submitted to the S&OC and will be reviewed by
the Time Allocation Committee (TAC), which recommends the best combination of
proposals for scheduling on the telescope. The contents of approved
proposals will be saved in the proposal database, which will be used
both for proposal tracking and proposal scheduling. Program Scheduling
The nature of the second Lagrange (L2)
orbit makes scheduling of Webb easier than Hubble, but also
necessitates long-range observing plans of at least one year's
duration. The Proposal Planning Tools used to prepare
proposals will allow many proposals to be incorporated directly
into the schedule. Only complicated programs, for example those with
linked visits and very specific orientation requirements, are likely
to require iteration. Calibrations will be regularly scheduled and
guide stars will be selected automatically for each observation.
Once scheduling is completed, the program will become part of the
Flight Operations.
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