Attendees

• Butler, Cotton, Fisher, Kellermann, Myers, Norrod, Perley, Ransom, Ulvestad, Walker

Agenda

1. Purpose, membership, and meetings of NRAO SKA working group
2. Results of Chicago-3 meeting
3. PrepSKA and TDP activities
4. Plans for Manchester meetings
5. Communication and coordination among NRAO SKA WG
6. Other business

Notes

1. Purpose, membership, meetings
   • Draft NRAO SKA Position (prepared based on meeting discussion, and approved by NRAO Director):
     1. SKA is an umbrella program for cm/m wave instrument and telescope development over the next 25 years; this ultimately may result in several telescopes under the SKA Program.
     2. The primary instrument to be proposed to the next decadal survey represents the "SKA-mid" science, nominally the Radio Synoptic Survey Telescope. NRAO will play a significant role in drafting the decadal case, including development of engineering design and cost estimates, with the instrument to be built in Australia or South Africa. Decadal proposal will include a funding request that may amount to less than 1/3 the total cost of SKA-mid. Open skies will be required, and include the assumption that US may contribute more than 1/3 to SKA-high. The exact staging of the full SKA-mid vs. the Phase I (~10%) SKA-mid will be determined as part of the proposal preparation.
     3. NRAO separately will participate in a plan to develop technology for the high-frequency SKA in the next decade, and will exploit our new telescopes as scientific pathfinders for SKA-high. The goal of this plan will be to be prepared to propose SKA-high to the 2020 decadal survey, not necessarily at the same site as SKA-mid, and perhaps as a build-out from EVLA.
     4. NRAO will seek opportunities for technical collaborations (including hardware, software, data-handling, algorithms, etc.) that advance the above goals. These technical collaborations may include, but are not limited to, TDP and PrepSKA.
2. Results of Chicago-3 meeting
   Incorporated in draft position above. Makeup of US SKA Consortium team to write the decadal committee submissions is Bower, Cordes, Henning, Lazio (chair), Myers, Preston, Terzian (ex-officio), Ulvestad. Myers and Ulvestad will coordinate additional NRAO input via the NRAO SKA Working Group.
3. PrepSKA and TDP activities
   Incorporated in draft position above. Feeling in the NRAO group is that we could not afford to send people to Manchester now without compromising our own activities, but that this might be possible in a year. A strongly suggested option is that the best way for the PrepSKA team to learn from EVLA is for some individuals to come to Socorro for a couple months, rather than sending one person to Manchester.
4. Plans for Manchester meetings
   Agreement to draft an NRAO position, which has been included in report on first agenda item above, and approved by NRAO Director. Suggestion that attendees send reports to Ulvestad, who will assemble into a single NRAO report on the Manchester SKA meetings.
5. Communication and coordination among NRAO SKA WG
   Discussion of individual e-mail aliases vs. reviving the nrao-ska exploder. Ulvestad has sent around a separate note advocating subscription to the nrao-ska mailing list (moderated by Walker). Telecons should happen approximately every two months, or as events warrant. For instance, there should be a telecon after the Manchester SKA meetings and before the US SKA Consortium meeting on November 30. Ulvestad will suggest telecon times and set up the meetings.
6. Other business
   None.