Suzaku News #085: Delay of Suzaku AO-10

[Newsletter for users of the Suzaku mission <suzakunews@lists.nasa.gov>]

Dear Suzaku users,

The Announcement of Opportunity (AO) for the Suzaku Guest Observer
Program has been released around early September of each year since
cycle 2 (2006). As you may know, however, the electric power condition
of Suzaku has become severe by degrees, and now the XIS and the HXD can
be operated simultaneously only while the solar angle and the orbit both
satisfy certain conditions. As a result, it is found that all
observations of the targets with priority A and B cannot be completed by
the end of March 2015. The operation team has started to consider
further reduction of the electric power consumption, in order to
increase the period during which contemporaneous XIS and HXD
observations can be performed.

In the meantime, the Steering Committee has decided to extend the
currently running AO-9 cycle by two months. Accordingly, the next AO
(AO-10) is now planned to be released around early November this year,
followed by a proposal submission deadline in mid-January 2015.

Regards,

Kazuhisa MITSUDA
Suzaku project manager