HEASARC News: Swift Cycle 6 / Meeting Announcements

[heasarcnews@lists.nasa.gov]

This email contains the following announcements:

1) Swift Cycle 6: Proposals Due September 30, 2009

2) Meeting: Women in Astronomy and Space Science: 
            Meeting the Challenges of an Increasingly Diverse Workplace
   October 21-23, 2009 - University of Maryland, USA

3) Meeting: High-resolution X-ray Spectroscopy:
            past, present and future - Utrecht, The Netherlands
   March 15-17, 2010

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1) Swift Cycle 6: Proposals Due September 30, 2009

The Swift Cycle 6 Guest Investigator (GI) Program is intended to provide
the following to participating scientists: funding to carry out
investigations using Swift data, to conduct correlative observations at
other wavelengths, and to conduct theoretical investigations in support
of Swift observations; involvement with the Swift science team in the
analysis and interpretation of GRB data obtained with the observatory;
rapid, time-critical multiwavelength follow-up observations on unique
astrophysical ToOs; and multiwavelength non-ToO observations on
compelling astrophysical sources.

*The deadline for submitting Notices Of Intent (NOIs) is August 26,
2009, 11:59PM EDT (midnight).
The deadline for submitting science proposals for the Swift Cycle 6 GI
program is September 30, 2009, 4:30PM EDT.

New for Cycle 6:

- Notices of Intent:* NOIs are submitted through ARK/RPS
(https://heasarc.gsfc.nasa.gov/ark/swiftrps/) and are no longer being
submitted through the NRESS NSPIRES system. Note that NOIs are optional
and are not required in order to submit a Phase-1 science/technical
proposal. However, we encourage you to submit a NOI if you intend to
submit a proposal as NOIs help NASA plan the Phase-1 peer review.

- Monitoring Programs:* Monitoring programs are defined as programs
requiring two or more observations (or "visits", where each "visit" is a
scheduled observation of a particular target) to the same object. No
more than 800 total short (<4 ks) visits and 100 long (>4ks) visits will
be accepted in Cycle 6 (total for all proposal categories).

- Time-Constrained Observations:* Time-constrained observations are
defined as observations that have to be performed within a certain time
window. These can be ToOs or non-ToOs, either monitoring or
non-monitoring observations, but not Fill-in observations. These include
phase-constrained proposals, coordinated observing campaigns with
ground- or space-based facilities, etc. Time-constrained observations
are subject to the following limits: 1) The window duration must exceed
3 hours; 2) No more than 300 time-constrained observations will be
accepted during Cycle 6. For coordinated and constrained observations,
it is the proposer's responsibility to inform the Swift Science
Operations Team of the observing time window at least one week before
observations commence.

- Budget Ceiling:* Each proposer who intends to request funding must
plan an investigation that can be accomplished within a budget ceiling
of $40k for the total cost to NASA (including overhead) of his/her
proposed investigation. There are two exceptions: 1) The budget ceiling
for Fill-in proposals has been lowered to $20k. 2) Proposals for
correlative GRB observations that intend to bring new or enhanced
ground-based IR capabilities online for potentially high redshift GRB
may require funding substantially above the average award (e.g., in the
$100k range of previous ROSES APRA awards).

- Page Limit for Proposals:* Proposals for correlative GRB observations
that intend to bring new or enhanced ground-based IR capabilities online
have a page limit of 6 pages. Proposals in all other proposal categories
have a 4 page limit. No supporting materials (e.g., CV, current and
pending support, etc.) are permitted. We encourage you to use the LaTeX
template for the scientific justification part of the proposal (i.e.,
the written text component of the proposal).

Detailed information about the Swift Cycle 6 GI Program can be found
following the links below.

http://heasarc.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/swift/proposals/
http://heasarc.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/swift/proposals/swiftgi.html

If you have questions about the Swift Cycle 6 GI Program, please contact
us via the Feedback Form (http://heasarcdev.gsfc.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/Feedback).

Dr. Stefan Immler
Swift Guest Investigator Program Lead
Email: stefan.immler@nasa.gov
Phone: (+1)301-286-0072
------------------------

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2) Women in Astronomy and Space Science

Please be aware of the upcoming "Women in Astronomy and Space Science"
meeting, which is subtitled "Meeting the Challenges of an Increasingly
Diverse Workplace", which GSFC is organizing in collaboration with
UMD, and with sponsorship from NSF as well as STScI, USRA, AURA, AIU,
APL, JPL, and NGST.  The keynote welcome is being given by Ed Weiler,
the Associate Administrator of NASA's Science Mission Directorate.

The meeting takes place at the Inn and Conference Center, University
of Maryland, University College from October 21 - 23.

While the first word in the title is "Women", there is also a strong
emphasis on minorities, and generational differences as well as women
in the workforce, with a great line-up of speakers, panels, and
networking events.  The meeting emphasizes best practices for success
and is meant to be useful to women and men, to both early career and
senior career scientists -- in other words, to the entire workforce.

Further details on the meeting, including Registration is available at:

http://wia2009.gsfc.nasa.gov


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3) High-resolution X-ray Spectroscopy: past, present and future

SRON Netherlands Institute for Space Research and Utrecht University
are pleased to announce the conference:

High-resolution X-ray spectroscopy: past, present and future to be
held in Utrecht, The Netherlands, on 2010 March 15-17.

Since the launch of XMM-Newton and Chandra ten years ago,
high-resolution X-ray spectroscopy has proven to be a very powerful
tool in astrophysics. It offers unique diagnostics to study almost any
object in the Universe. The grating spectrometers aboard XMM-Newton
and Chandra still continue to provide excellent data, while imaging
calorimeters are being prepared for future missions like ASTRO-H and
IXO. The synergy with other wavelength bands like the UV w ill be
boosted by the addition of COS to HST. In this meeting, we foresee
presentations on highlights and the state -of-the-art of X-ray
spectroscopy for a broad range of objects and on the prospects for
future studies.

More information about the conference is available at:

http://www.sron.nl/xray2010/

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A service of the High Energy Astrophysics Science Archive Research Center (HEASARC)
NASA/GSFC

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