ATUC, Marsfield

Phil Diamond, Chief of Division28 June 2011

CSIRO Astronomy and Space Science

ATNF: Director’s Update

CASS Mission

• To operate and develop the Australia Telescope as a national research facility for use by Australian and international researchers

• To exploit the facility’s unique southern location and technological advantages to maintain its position as a world-class radio astronomy observatory

• To meet NASA’s needs for continuous communication with its fleet of spacecraft throughout our solar system, and thereby contribute to humankind’s understanding of space

• To further the advancement of knowledge

CASS Divisional Sites

MRO

RadiophysicsLaboratory

GeraldtonPawsey HPC Centre

GeraldtonParkes

Narrabri

Mopra

Tidbinbilla

ATNF Steering CommitteeMet in Parkes on 9-11 May

Lister Staveley-Smith (UWA: Chairman)

Brian Schmidt (ANU)

Rachel Webster (UMelb)

Jackie Hewitt (MIT)

Michael Kramer (MPIfR)

Nan Rendong (NAOC)

Alan Brien (Scitech)

Jim Noble (ex-Defence)

Ex-officio:

Matthew Colless (AAO)

Ian Opperman (CSIRO ICTC)

Alex Zelinsky (CSIRO IS Group Exec)

Organizational structure

National Facilities: Assessments of Quality

• Australia Telescope National Facility:• ATNF is second most productive radio astronomy facility in the world (by papers published) • ATCA #2 in citations/paper

• Parkes #3 in citations/paper

• Canberra Deep Space Communication Complex:• NASA’s best-performing DSN station• Mission Critical support for 45 spacecraft exploring the solar system, fleet valued at ~US$17B• Data integrity >99.75%

Future of ATNF operations

CSIRO budget is finalised tomorrow.

It will take us a little while to finalise the

CASS budget.

Hoping to make announcement on

13th July

Some statistics: Publication numbers

Some statistics: Publications by facility

Some statistics: PhD students

Recent statistics: publications by CASS staff

•

Parkes 50th Anniversary

• Oct 31, 2011 marks 50th anniversary of the first science observations with Parkes.

Parkes 50th Anniversary

SKA Activities

• Founding Board created in April 2011

• 9 countries signed initially (UK, NL, DE, FR, IT, CN, AU, NZ, RSA)

• On-going activities to establish full legal entity with Governing Council (a la ESO Council); won’t quite be able to sign at SKA Forum

• Jodrell Bank, UK announced as HQ of new SKA Project Office

• Project Execution Plan (PEP) developed, requires 90 Meuro to resource

• Aus Govt will provide $40.2M for PEP and related activities, only if site decision goes our way

• Meetings already held in Aus to decide how best we will participate in PEP

• RQZ report for site decision submitted 30 June

• Full submission document submitted on 15th September

• Documents reviewed by independent committee of experts, decision on 29th February 2012 by SKA Governing Council

Contact UsPhone: 1300 363 400 or +61 3 9545 2176Email: Enquiries@csiro.au Web: www.csiro.au

Thank you

CSIRO Astronomy and Space SciencePhilip DiamondChief

Phone: +61 2 9372 4300Email: phil.diamond@csiro.au Web: www.csiro.au/org/CASS