NICER Proposals and Tools

GO Cycle 2 Proposal Selection Announcement

Posted: 27 February 2020

The NICER mission is pleased to announce that the proposal selection process for GO Cycle 2 is complete, and observations will begin March 1, 2020. Documents listing selected proposals and approved targets have been released. Target of Opportunity targets requested by more than one proposal have been prioritized according to feedback received from the review panels. If you feel a target has satisfied the trigger criteria, contact the NICER science team as soon as possible via the NICER Target of Opportunity/Director's Discretionary Time Request form. Be sure to include your accepted proposal number in the scientific justification.

U.S. principal investigators will be notified directly regarding invitations to submit Phase 2 budget proposals. The due date for Phase 2 budget proposals is now May 21, 2020 (was April 23).

NICER Guest Observer Program

In 2018, NICER began to solicit Guest Observer proposals from the general scientific community via NASA's ROSES Research Opportunities. A Phase 1 (Science) proposal is submitted to NASA HEASARC's ARK/RPS system, containing detailed target selection forms and a concise science justification. Proposals may come from both US and non-US researchers. Phase 1 proposals are evaluated by peer review panels. Data from approved GO observations are public by default, however, GO proposal PIs can request a six month exclusive-use period, subject to peer review approval.

NASA also provides grant funding to support certain selected proposals. These funds are limited to proposals with PIs at US institutions. Selected proposals will receive a notification letter with more details and an invitation to submit a Phase 2 (Budget) proposal. Phase 2 proposals are submitted to NASA's NSPIRES system. In addition, there are reporting requirements for proposals with budget awards.

New in Cycle 2:

The following items have changed compared to Cycle 1:

• ToO requests with unknown targets are allowed.
• More flexible observing strategies are available for monitoring programs.
• Moving targets are allowed.
• Multi-year proposals (up to 1 year beyond the end of Cycle 2 observations) are allowed with sufficient science justification.
• Erroneously high background estimates in PIMMS (see below) have been corrected. (In addition, two background estimator tools have been released by the team.)

General Information

NICER Cycle 2 Guide for Proposers

The Guide for Proposers summarizes guidelines from the NASA Research Announcement for NICER Guest Observers. It also describes in detail the elements and submission method for Phase 1 (Science) NICER Guest Observer proposals, as well as for Phase 2 (Budget) proposals.

NICER Cycle 2 Phase 1 (Science) Proposal Submission

The HEASARC's Remote Proposal System (RPS) is an automated service providing Guest Observers from around the world an easy-to-use facility for submitting proposals in response to NASA Research Announcements.

NICER Proposal Tools

The NICER Proposal Tools provide documentation of the mission and applications/files that can be used for count rate and spectral simulations in order to help potential proposers demonstrate the feasibility of their proposed NICER observations. Approximate target visibility windows can be determined and NICER-specific observation properties are described.

• NEW!! Two tools for estimating NICER's background have been released by the GOF. You can find out more on the Background Estimator Tools page.

NICER Science Team Investigations

By agreement with NASA's Astrophysics Explorers Program, the NICER Project is required to fulfill certain science objectives. The NICER Science Team Investigations support these science objectives. Proposed Guest Observer projects that duplicate existing projects of the NICER Science Team must justify that duplication, and may not be favorably reviewed.

Additional Opportunities to Propose for NICER Observing Time

Unsolicited NICER Target of Opportunity (ToO) or Director's Discretionary Time (DDT) Observations

The Cycle 2 GO program allows for ToO proposals to observe known sources. In addition, unsolicited ToO requests for transient and unpredictable phenomena, from both known and previously unknown sources, can be made using the the NICER ToO request form. (Please review the NICER ToO Policy before making your request.)

Joint Programs Through Other Observatories

Currently NICER has arrangements with the NuSTAR observatory which makes available joint observing time. Please see the NuSTAR Proposal page for more information about the current NuSTAR Announcement of Opportunity.

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