In AO-8, 100% of the observing time available is used for GO observations. The current schedule for the time allocation between Japanese and US PIs is given in Table 4.1. The AO will run for a year starting in April 2013. However, given the secular degradation of its power system, the possibility that the observations cannot continue throughout the 1-year AO period should be kept in mind.
In 2009, the new category of Key Project proposals was introduced. Key Projects were defined as comprehensive observing programs sampling a number of objects of a particular class, or surveying a large region of the sky, in order to take maximal advantage of the unique attributes of Suzaku to address important astrophysical problems. Given the above situation, no new Key Project proposals are being solicited in AO-8, while the completion of on-going Key Projects will be a high priority of the mission.
After seven years of operation, we know that the actual observing
efficiency is about 38ks per day and we assume 360days of
operations per year. From the total of 13680ks, we subtract 3% of
the available time as observatory time used for satellite maintenance
and similar purposes, and 5% for ongoing calibration observations.
Finally, 5% are earmarked as Director's Discretionary Time (DDT) for
unproposed Target of Opportunity (TOO) proposals (including
observations of gamma-ray bursts) and other important observations,
granted at the mission director's discretion. Therefore
ks are nominally available to the community
via the proposal selection process.
The project will over-subscribe this total by 40% including category C targets for which the observation is not guaranteed (see Section 4.4 below). If the actual sum of the observatory, calibration, and director's times is less than 12%, additional C targets will be observed.
In this AO, up to 2Ms will be set aside for continuing Key Projects. 5,451ks are assigned to Japanese observations and 3,963ks go to US observations. The remaining 488ks, plus any time remaining in the Key Project allocation, are set aside for joint Japan-US investigations. When the respective national reviews have selected the same target, the two proposals will be merged if both teams indicated their willingness to collaborate on the RPS form, and the observation will be counted against the Japan-US time. If such mergers do not take up 488ks, the remainder will be divided between separate Japanese and US investigations. Additionally, within the "Japanese" allocation, 909ks are reserved for proposals submitted to ESA as joint Japan-ESA observations. Proposals from non-US, non-ESA countries will be accepted within the Japanese time up to the ESA portion.
|
|
The nationality of the PI's institution determines which agency should receive the proposal. That is, researchers at US institutions must submit their proposals to NASA and those at institutions in ESA member countries must submit theirs to ESA (regardless of their actual nationality). While the ISAS/JAXA proposal process is primarily aimed at researchers resident in Japan, proposals from researchers in other (non-US, non-ESA) countries will also be considered. A PI with dual affiliations generally must choose a single agency for all his/her AO-8 proposals, even if they are for independent projects. Only in rare cases, a single PI may be considered eligible to submit Suzaku proposals through multiple agencies. Co-Is from any country may be part of any proposal, though.
The category of ``Long Program'' for proposals with a total exposure
time 
300ks, available in (only) the US from AO-3 to AO-6 is not
offered in AO-8.
Regular US proposals may request no more than 1Ms of observing time for practical reasons (regular ISAS/JAXA proposals may not exceed total exposure times of 400ks). Note that for TOO proposals this 1Ms limit applies to the actually requested observing time. It is therefore possible to request 400ks per target for up to 2 triggers among 5 potential targets, for example.
The data rights policy for Suzaku is similar to previous missions. The
normal exclusive period for GO data is one year, except for
proposals with a total accepted exposure time 
ks (including
priority C targets), and DDT data which are made public immediately.
Accepted targets will be classified into three categories. Priority A targets will be preferentially observed during the AO-8 period (April 2013 to March 2014). Priority B targets will be scheduled in this period as much as possible, but may be carried over to the next cycle. Priority C targets will be used as fillers when there are gaps in the schedule. For the total available time T, we currently plan to accept 0.6T, 0.3T, and 0.5T as As, Bs, and Cs (for a total over-subscription by 40%).
During AO-8, category A and B targets will be considered complete if 90% (for A targets) or 70% (for B targets) of the proposed time is obtained on the source. In general, supplementary observations will be performed for A or B targets that do not meet the completion criteria, although it may not always be possible in case of time critical observations.
During the GO phase, data from calibration and TOOs requested outside the proposal process (see below) will not be considered proprietary.
TOO proposals are allowed for Suzaku through the normal proposal
process, although they must be highly ranked (see below) to be
accepted. Proposals with TOOs should not be mixed with non-TOO
targets. TOO proposals are allowed for short-lived
events in known objects the timing of which is uncertain. These should
only include unpredictable phenomena in a specific target (e.g.,
SS Cyg in outburst), not a generic target (e.g., the next Galactic
supernova). The trigger criteria must be explicit and
quantifiable, and stated in detail in the proposal text; a brief
summary should appear in the ``Remarks'' section of the target
form. In addition, TOO proposals must provide an estimated
probability of a successful trigger during the AO period. It is
the PI's responsibility to notify the Suzaku project when the
criteria are met. Generic TOOs without a specific target (such
as "a nearby supernova") will not be accepted. In the same spirit, the
number of targets in TOO proposals should not exceed 5. Gamma-ray
bursts or any genuinely unpredictable events may be observed outside
the proposal process, as part of the 5% DDT. Data from such
observations will not have a proprietary period.
To request such
unproposed TOO observations, please send an e-mail to:
suzaku_managers 
at astro.isas.jaxa.jp using the format
specified in
http://www.astro.isas.jaxa.jp/suzaku/planning/gtoo/.
The Solar panels on the Suzaku satellite are fixed. This places a restriction on the pointing direction with respect to the satellite-Sun line: the Sun angle constraint during AO-8 is 70-110degrees. This means that at any given time of the year, only a swath of the sky 40degrees wide is accessible for astronomical observations, and thus most celestial sources are available for observations for about 40days every 6months. If a specific observing date or a coordinated observation with other missions is required, the proposer must first determine if the observation is possible. This can be done using the ``Viewing'' tool on the Suzaku proposal web-site (see Appendix B).
Long (1day) observations are the norm for Suzaku. A large number of
short observations is an inefficient use of the satellite because of
the unusable time during slews and attitude settling. The pointing is
expected to be accurate to 0.3arcmin and can be reconstructed to
better than 0.2arcmin, except during the initial settling period of
up to 10minutes. Moreover, there is a limit on the number of slews
that can be uploaded to Suzaku. For these reasons, a minimum exposure
time of 10ks has been set for all proposed observations.
Contiguous observations, i.e., observations not disrupted by the observation of another target, are generally guaranteed up to exposures of not more than 100ks. This limitation is due to moon light constraints for the star trackers' field of view, conflicts with other time critical observations, and other operational/planning difficulties. While the operation team does accept requests for uninterrupted observations longer than the 100ks, these are conducted on a best-effort basis.
Even during shorter pointed observations, there will typically be
interruptions due to the location of Suzaku in a low Earth
orbit: Normally, a target will be occulted by the Earth for
30minutes every satellite orbit. In addition, Suzaku will pass
through the South Atlantic Anomaly (SAA) during parts of 5 or
6orbits every day. Due to the harsh radiation environment of the
SAA, scientific observation is not possible during SAA passages. There
are other variations in the particle background, depending primarily
on the Cut-Off Rigidity (COR)4.1. The optimal criteria to reduce times of high
background while maximizing the science return are still being
determined from SWG observations, please check the Suzaku web-sites (see
Appendix B) for the most up-to-date suggestions.
There are also orbital constraints on the orientation of the projection of the XIS CCDs on the sky. Since the Suzaku XIS arrays are square, with calibration sources in different corners, selecting a specific roll angle is rarely significant. However, if a specific roll angle is scientifically advantageous, the proposer must first determine if it is allowed. This can be done using the MAKI tool described in Section 5.7. Then the required roll range can be entered on the RPS proposal form. For objects close to the ecliptic poles it is possible to arrange for any XIS orientation by scheduling observations at a specific time, but for those located close to the ecliptic, the XIS will project on the sky in a nearly fixed orientation. Note that any roll constraint will make a proposal time critical.
It is possible to specify the time of observations (time critical, or TC, observations) in order to observe during specific phases or for simultaneous observations. Monitoring observations (repeated observations with a specified interval) or roll-angle constrained observations are also considered time critical, and must be so flagged on the proposal form. The total accepted time of the TC and TOO proposals is less than 15% of the total observation, and proposers should justify their requirements carefully.
Overall the proposers are strongly urged to provide accurate information. All information that is indispensable for operation planning should be provided on the electronic forms. The PIs are advised to utilize the ``Remarks'' area if they have detailed requests which cannot be expressed with the check boxes/pull-down menus.
After the Suzaku proposal deadline, there will be three independent
proposal reviews for the US, Japan, and ESA proposals. Each review
will create a target list from the proposed observations, ranking the
accepted targets as category A, B, or C. Only category A and B targets
are guaranteed to be observed. As stated above, TOOs and time critical
observations are only accepted within 15% of the total time -
however, the project will review this limit given the narrower range
of sun angles allowed and other power-related considerations at the
time of the international merging meeting in February 2013. Category C
targets will be observed as time permits, and will not be carried over
into the next AO if not observed in this AO. An international merging
committee will collate the three target lists and produce a single,
unified list. Overlaps between US and Japanese targets will be
resolved, either by merging the investigations (if both parties are
willing) or by choosing one. In the latter process, the priority given
by the national reviews, as well as the lengths of the accepted
observations, will be considered. The final target list will be 
% oversubscribed. Category A and Key Project targets will have
60% of the available time, category B 30%, and category C 50%.
Even though observations are scheduled to acquire roughly the approved exposure time and although this is usually achieved with Suzaku, occasional losses of usable observation time are inevitable. As mentioned above, Category A observations will be deemed complete when they have received at least 90% of the approved time. Note that this will be judged based on the good time intervals of the cleaned XIS event files after the standard screening. Dead times (including those due to the use of the burst option) are not taken into account. Also, the standard screening for the HXD is more strict, so the effective exposure for the HXD is often smaller than that of the XIS by 20% or more. Additional observations will be scheduled automatically for those non-time-critical targets the observations of which are considered incomplete by the project scientist at ISAS. In the case of time-critical observations which are incomplete or unusable, it will be the PI's responsibility to determine the best course of action.
Each PI will be assigned a contact scientist, either at ISAS or the NASA Suzaku GOF, who will work with the PI to assure the maximum science return. This will include double-checking coordinates, count rates and finalizing configurations (nominal pointing, XIS modes, ...). It is important to note that once an observation has been scheduled, any delay in responding to questions from the contact scientist may result in targets being removed from the schedule. We do not have a mechanism to approve coordinated observations with Suzaku and another observatory through a single proposal except for the joint Fermi-Suzaku and Chandra-Suzaku programs noted earlier. It is the PI's responsibility to secure observing time with other observatories, when simultaneous observations are desirable. Please note that the Suzaku component of such a proposal may be approved contingent on the success of other proposals. Special scheduling requests and TOOs will be accommodated on a best effort basis. For simultaneous observations, the mission scheduler at ISAS, in consultation with the contact scientist, will contact the PI in advance for detailed scheduling information, and will often work directly with schedulers of other missions. During the AO-1-AO-7 observing periods, the Suzaku scheduling team made every effort to accommodate requests of coordinated/simultaneous observations with other facilities and we expect that it will continue to do so during AO-8.
Once the observation has been completed, the data will be promptly run
through the processing pipeline and put into both the US and Japanese
archives, initially in encrypted form, unless the proposal has a total
accepted exposure time ks as noted above. The PI will be sent the
decryption key, if applicable, along with instructions on how to download
and decrypt the data. Another exception to the one year exclusive period
for GO data concerns the HXD Wide-band All-sky Monitor (WAM) data (see
Chapter 8). The WAM is primarily used for anticoincidence
shielding in the HXD, but it can also be used as an all-sky monitor,
detecting solar flares, gamma-ray bursts, and other bright X-ray
sources (e.g., Cyg X-1). All data from the WAM will be monitored
by the HXD team, which will alert the GRB community to any detected
bursts. In addition, the HXD team will make analysis results from WAM,
such as light curves and fluences, available to the public as soon as
possible. These may be used to put limits on GRBs or other events
triggered by other satellites or observatories. However, the PI will
receive the complete WAM data from their observation and will share
data rights with the Suzaku team for the normal 1year proprietary
period. This unusual arrangement is due to the time-critical and
non-source-specific nature of the WAM data.
With the exception of the code that converts raw binary telemetry into FITS format files, all Suzaku software is written as FTOOLS and distributed through the Suzaku team at ISAS/JAXA and the NASA/GSFC HEASARC. This includes the tools used in the processing. All calibration files are distributed through the HEASARC caldb (calibration database) system. This enables users to apply any calibration updates themselves. The Suzaku team at ISAS and the NASA Suzaku GOF provide additional FTOOLS that may be necessary or desirable for analyzing Suzaku data. The use of other software packages will only be supported at a lower priority level.