Announcement - 2015 WFOS-MOBIE Mini-studies Final Review
The Wide Field Optical Spectrograph (WFOS) is one of the three first-light observing capabilities selected by the TMT Science Advisory Committee. The Multi-Object Broadband Imaging Echellette (MOBIE) instrument design concept has been developed to address the WFOS requirements as described in the TMT Science-Based Requirements Document. As the name implies, WFOS-MOBIE is a seeing-limited, wide-field imaging multi-object echellette spectrograph. WFOS-MOBIE can directly image or create low (R = ~1000) to medium-resolution (R = ~8,000) spectra in two color channels simultaneously, spanning 310-550nm and 500-1100nm passbands respectively. WFOS-MOBIE views a rectangular field of approximately 3.0 arcmin x 8.3 arcmin resulting in a field area of 24.9 square arcminutes, and a total slit length of 500 arcsec.
The TMT partnership has been engaged in an effort to form a full WFOS team through an international workshare development process. A key step in this process was the submission of Expressions of Interest (EoIs) from various groups that are interested in contributing to the design and construction of WFOS. The institutions submitting these EoIs have been grouped into twelve “mini-study” teams to further investigate the most important aspects and subsystems of the instrument. The goals of these mini-studies were (i) to familiarize the teams with both the elements of WFOS-MOBIE and the TMT standards for instrument design studies, and also (ii) address a range of both technical and cost/schedule questions to support further progress on the WFOS-MOBIE design.
This review is being held to assess the results of the WFOS-MOBIE mini-studies. These results include technical designs, engineering and performance analyses, cost/schedule estimates and management plans that may have a significant impact on the future development of WFOS. A second objective is to determine which teams have demonstrated a level of technical and management expertise consistent with what is required to be a successful partner in the WFOS team. Team members should be ready to “take ownership” of their contributions in terms of technical designs, performance requirements, error budgets, and schedule and cost estimates before proceeding further. A summary of the results of the meeting, including the recommendations from the review panel, will be presented to the TMT Instrumentation Department Head and, in turn, to the TMT Project Manager by the Decision Making Authority (Luc Simard). The TMT Project Manager will accept or augment the findings and recommendations and will seek the advice of the TMT SAC. The TMT Project Manager will report the process and results to the TMT Board seeking guidance as necessary.
Meeting website could be accessed here.
Recent comments