Chandra FAQs

1. What's your observation cycle timeline?

Chandra proposals are due sometime in March and then reviewed by a Peer Review in June. We then accept them around July and start planning out the long-term schedule in September/October (and contact you with any coordinating observation details at this time). Our new cycle generally starts in November/December. Throughout the cycle, observers can propose for DDT (Director's discretionary time) if they feel their observation can't wait for the next cycle. These can be thought of as TOO (targets of opportunities) in most cases.

2. What is the lead time for your short-term scheduling process?

Chandra mission planners start planning 3 weeks ahead of time, and then have a preliminary schedule about 12 days ahead of time. We finalize our schedule sometime during the week ahead of the schedule start (generally starts on a Monday).

3. How long is your schedule?

Chandra generally plans 7 day schedules, except over the Christmas holidays when we do a 14 day schedule. Our schedules start approximately on Monday of the week (sometimes late on Sundays). We may also build replan schedules in cases where we have a radiation shutdown or TOO (target of opportunity).

4. Does your telescope have TOO (targets of opportunity) which may cause you to replan a schedule?

Chandra does do TOOs and we strive to keep coordination times fixed in place whenever possible, but at times we may have to contact you with a last minute change. We may also contact you with a TOO that is requesting a coordination with your telescope.

5. Do we have the correct contact information for your telescope?

To contact us at Chandra, please email cxc_coord@head.cfa.harvard.edu. This is a list email that goes to Pat Slane (the group leader), and myself. Other mission planning staff may contact you in regards to a specific week and so it is okay to reply to their emails, just be sure to cc: cxc_coord@head.cfa.harvard.edu in your replies so we can maintain a record of the coordination communication.

6. Any final notes we should know about your coordination scheduling procedures or ways we could improve our communication?

We generally classify our coordinations as simultaneous or contemporaneous. For contemporaneous, we'll often just try to schedule in the same week as your telescope whereas for simultaneous observations, we will work to converge on an unifying observation window.

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Beth Perriello
bethp@stsci.edu
June 02, 2008