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Technical Design Reports: Signed, Sealed, Delivered
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On 25 May, the Project Office submitted the Technical Design Reports (TDRs) to the Scientific and Technical Design Committee (STAC) for the Critical Design Review (CDR). The content, based on many years of planning, designing, building and testing CTA technology, software and infrastructure, is the culmination of the dedication and hard work of scientists and engineers from around the world. At more than four thousand pages, the documents represent the full scope of the construction project and will serve as the foundation for future development.
“I’m incredibly impressed with what we have been able to achieve in the past 14 months,” said Project Manager Christopher Townsley. “Where we are today is a testament to our global team’s enthusiasm for CTA and its scientific potential.”
On 24 June, work-package teams and the STAC will convene for the CDR. If the CDR is successful, CTA will have what it needs to move forward with securing the funding for the construction phase of the project. And with site selections and a founding agreement expected by the end of the year, CTA will be well on its way to implementation in 2016.
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Upcoming Milestones & Meetings
Milestones
- 24-26 June: Critical Design Review by STAC
- Mid-2015: 2nd Formal Call for Expressions of Interest
- Late 2015: 1st Formal Call for Contributions for Construction
Meetings
- 24-26 June: Critical Design Review
- 1-3 July: LST Error Budget Workshop
- 6-10 July: LST General Meeting
- 15-16 July: CTA Resource Board and CTA Council Meeting (Possibly Including Votes on Array Sites)
- 27-28 July: SCT-GCT Meeting
- 28-29 July: Project Committee Meeting
- 7-8 September: Project Committee Meeting
- 14-18 September: CTA Consortium Meeting
More details are available on Indico.
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Consortium Meeting Wrap-Up
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Approximately 150 Consortium members converged on Turku, Finland the week of 5-8 May to share and discuss the latest developments in CTA. Presenters covered all aspects of the work packages and key science projects in more than 40 sessions throughout the week. Highlights from the event included announcements about the prototypes and testing of telescopes and cameras, as well as the progression toward major project milestones.
“This week of meetings revealed that our investment in the TDRs paid off and that we have made a clear step forward in the development of our telescopes and technology,” said CTA Spokesperson Werner Hofmann during his closing remarks.
The week ended with the Consortium Board voting in Chile and Ukraine as new members of the Consortium. The Board also approved the submission of the suite of TDR documents for the CDR.
Plans are already underway for the 14-18 September Consortium Meeting in Liverpool, UK and the spring 2016 meeting in Tokyo, Japan. Visit Indico to review the presentations from the Turku meeting and the preliminary agenda for the Liverpool meeting.
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Horizon 2020
Funding Awards
Two programmes benefiting CTA will be awarded funding by the European Roadmap for Research Infrastructures (ESFRI) Horizon 2020 programme:
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INFRADEV: €4.2 million was awarded to help ensure and expedite the implementation of CTA’s infrastructure, pre-production telescopes, legal support and site outreach through to the end of 2017.
ASTERICS: €15 million awarded to help Europe’s world-leading observatories (CTA, SKA, Km3Net, ESO) work together to find common solutions to their Big Data challenges, their interoperability and scheduling, and their data access. (read more)
According to the ESFRI website, “Horizon 2020 is the biggest EU Research and Innovation programme ever with nearly €80 billion of funding available over 7 years (2014 to 2020). In addition to the private investment that this money will attract, it promises more breakthroughs, discoveries and world-firsts by taking great ideas from the lab to the market.”
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Computing Cluster for Software Validation
As announced at the Turku Consortium Meeting, the DESY (Zeuthen) data centre now hosts a new computing cluster that is exclusively devoted to software development and testing for CTA purposes. The cluster was purchased using a grant acquired by Humboldt University Berlin. Any CTA collaborator can apply for testing time.
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The computing cluster ('ACTL testbed') is conceived as the first truly central development and testing facility for the Array Control and Data Acquisition work package (ACTL). The ACTL testbed will bring together individual ACTL software products to test their interoperability. It is foreseen that any major software that will be executed in the on-site computing centre on any future CTA site should be tested on the cluster before installation on site, so the testbed will play a vital role in the validation and verification process for ACTL and DATA.
As of now, the ACTL testbed consists of 10 ‘worker’ nodes (DELL PowerEdge R630, 2x 8 cores, 64 GB RAM, 1.2 TB hard disk) and 5 storage nodes (DELL PowerEdge R730xd, 1x 8 cores, 32 GB RAM, 72 TB hard disk); each node is connected by two 10 Gbits/s ethernet lines (aggregated in 802.3ad mode) to a chassis switch (Arista DCS 7304). In the near future, a few kilometers of optical fibre cables will be added to the setup to realistically emulate the network latency between a CTA telescope and the on-site computing centre.
A detailed description of the ACTL testbed and an application form for testing time on the cluster can be found at https://forge.in2p3.fr/projects/ctaactl/wiki/ACTLTestCluster/. At present, large-scale simulations to evaluate NoSQL database technologies (MongoDB) for the ACTL instrument monitoring system are in progress and will be followed by further tests. Contact Michael Mayer if you need any additional information about the ACTL testbed.
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First ACTL Workshop a Success
Approximately 40 representatives from all seven CTA camera teams and the ACTL work-packages came together at the Haus der Astronomie in Heidelberg from 27 to 29 May for the first ACTL-camera workshop. Organised by ACTL and the Project Office, attendees also included Project Scientist Jim Hinton, Project Manager Christopher Townsley and members of the DATA work-package.
The main topics addressed were linked to three ACTL-Camera interfacing aspects: data acquisition, time stamping of the measured events and camera servers. The overall goal of the meeting was to identify commonalities and differences across all camera teams in the way they will interface to ACTL.
After three full days of plenary and parallel sessions with intensive discussion, all workshop goals were generally fulfilled. The need for a homogenous approach was fully agreed upon (e.g. a common operating system, common hardware in the data centre, common tools for software development and other common elements). And wherever agreements were not reached, plans were made. All of this was possible thanks to extensive preparation and the pragmatic and collaborative atmosphere.
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Call for Outreach Representatives
and Contacts
As CTA crosses the threshold of some of its biggest milestones this year, outreach and communications is becoming increasingly more important. A list of institute press offices’ emails is being compiled to expand our national media network and to help promote CTA’s member institutes. Additionally, the CTA Outreach Committee is seeking to grow its membership with representatives from each institute. Two levels of participation are available:
Member: Share resources (images, videos, information/news), collaborate (events, reviews, ideas), expand network and help disseminate news (newsletter, media, social media).
Outreach Representative: Serve as a central contact and help lead coordination of communication and outreach for your country and institute. Assist with translation and national dissemination of news through institute contacts.
To provide a press office/officer email or to join the Outreach Committee, contact CTA Communications Officer Megan Grunewald.
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CTA Performance Data Now Online
CTA will provide a wider energy range, better sensitivity and higher angular resolution than any existing gamma-ray detector. A public “CTA Performance” page has been added to the CTA website detailing the official baseline performance expected from CTA based on Monte Carlo simulations.
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International Cosmic Ray
Conference Papers
CTA is presenting more than 80 papers at the 34th International Cosmic Ray Conference in The Hague from 30 July to 6 August. The abstracts were reviewed by the Speakers and Publications Office (SAPO) and extra help has been drafted to review the papers. The conference paper submission deadline moved from 29 June to 6 July so the SAPO deadline for paper submission was changed to 22 June.
Authors should note that there are some small changes to the publication policy, which arose from the Consortium Board in Turku: https://portal.cta-observatory.org/Bodies/SAPO/Documents/CTA-CB-GOV-131220-V2.6.pdf. If you joined CTA after 1 July 2014, you will need to read the policy and email Jürgen Knödlseder and Javier Rico, confirming that you have read it and agree with its contents, to be eligible to sign Consortium publications.
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Papers, Conferences & Abstract Deadlines
SAPO has the following published papers, upcoming conferences and imminent abstract deadlines to report:
Papers
"Instrumentation for comparing night sky quality and atmospheric conditions of CTA site candidates"
C. Fruck et al.
Journal of Instrumentation 10 (2015) P04012
"Characterization and performance of the ASIC (CITIROC) front-end of the ASTRI camera"
D. Impiombato et al.
Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research Section A 794 (2015) 185
Conferences
14th Marcel Grossman Meeting (MG14)
12-18 July – Rome, Italy
International Cosmic Ray Conference (ICRC) 2015
30 July-6 August – The Hague, Netherlands
International Astronomical Union (IAU) General Assembly
3-14 August – Honolulu, USA
17th Lomonosov Conference
8-13 August – Moscow, Russia
SPIE Optics + Photonics 2015
9-13 August – San Diego, USA
La Palma 2015
26-29 August – La Palma, Canary Islands
Conference Abstract Deadlines
ADASS XXV
25-29 October – Sydney, Australia
Abstract due: 1 July
High-Energy Phenomena in Relativistic Outflows V (HEPRO-V)
5-8 October – La Plata, Argentina
Abstract due: 15 July
TeV Particle Astrophysics 2015
26-30 October – Kashiwa, Japan
Abstract due: 17 July
6th Fermi Symposium
2-6 November – Washington, DC, USA
Abstract due: 1 August
Visit the SAPO site for a complete listing and guidance on submitting abstracts and speaking at conferences on CTA-related topics.
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The CTA Newsletter is your resource for CTA project guidance and news, as well as your opportunity to share your successes with the CTA community. If you would like to contribute or comment, email the editor, Megan Grunewald.
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