The Project Manager and Project Scientist are the key personnel in the proposed work. Winer's Scientific Director, Mark Trueblood, will serve as Project Manager during the Design and Construction Phases, and as Principal Investigator during the Commissioning and Operations phases of the project. Dr. Larry Lebofsky, a member of the faculty of the University of Arizona, has agreed to serve as the Project Scientist.
The Project Scientist has the responsibility to keep the scientific goals of the telescope in the forefront, while the Project Manager strives to keep the project on schedule and budget. This staffing plan generates a creative tension between the Project Manager (who may be tempted to cut corners to save time and money) and the Project Scientist (who may be tempted to spend time and money to preserve telescope and instrument capabilities) with the goal of finding the right balance to assure success.
The Project Scientist will assist the Project Manager in developing the engineering requirements and procurement specifications for the telescope, instrumentation, and control system. Throughout the project lifetime, the Project Scientist will review the work of all contractors and major decisions made by the Project Manager and all first-tier contractors, to ensure that the telescope will meet its scientific objectives. The Project Scientist will assist in selecting filters and detectors and make other recommendations to the Project Manager that affect the scientific performance of the telescope system.
The Project Scientist will appoint and lead the Science Advisory Committee (SAC), composed of individuals engaged in NEO astrometric observation, NEO light curves, and minor planet characterization studies. When an EPO partner formally joins the project, they will be invited to place a member on the SAC to ensure their scientific aspirations are represented.
Under the leadership of the Project Scientist, this committee will develop the science cases that reflect the science aspirations of Winer and our Education and Public Outreach (EPO) partner, and will develop science requirements for the telescope, imager, and control system derived from the science cases. The SAC may also be asked to review quotations from major telescope system component vendors, plans for commissioning the telescope system, the detailed schedule and budget, and other important project plans and decision points.
A key person on any technical project is the Systems Engineer, who oversees the technical integrity of the project and who understands the customer, the performance the system must deliver to this customer, and what is required to deliver this performance. Although the role of Systems Engineer can be filled in several ways, the Project Manager and Project Scientist have agreed to retain a third person, on a part-time basis, to work with them to define the scientific and engineering requirements for the project.
Possible sources for the Systems Engineer are staff working at NOAO or the AURA New Initiatives Office on the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) Project, faculty at the University of Arizona's Optical Sciences Center, or local consultants in the Tucson area, of which there are several. Although Mr. Trueblood has received offers of help from several individuals qualified to be the Systems Engineer, it is not appropriate at this time to name these individuals, due to their affiliations with other projects.
The project staff will also include an experienced optical designer. Possible candidates for the optical designer include Dr. Richard Buchroeder, Dr. Harland Epps, and Charles Harmer. Since Tucson is known as "Optics Valley" (in analogy to the San Francisco bay area's Silicon Valley), there are many independent optical designers in the area qualified to perform this function.
Dr. Buchroeder designed the SpaceWatch telescope for the University of Arizona and the Multi-Conjugate Adaptive Optics system for the Gemini Observatory. Dr. Epps is a professor of astronomy at U. C. Santa Cruz and has designed the optics for a number of front-line astronomical instruments. Mr. Harmer has a long and distinguished career as an optical designer in the United Kingdom and at NOAO, designing modern astronomical telescopes and instrumentation.
Last modified: January 3, 2008.