First Vendors
Meeting

MMA Internal
Review Report

MMA Oversight
Committee
Report

MMA Advisory
Committee
Minutes

MMA Advisory
Committee
Annual Meeting

New Memos!

Following the September 15th meeting of the ESO Council, a press release was issued by ESO stressing the importance of astronomy at millimeter wavelengths and enthusiasm for collaboration between the European Large Southern Array (LSA) Project and the Millimeter Array Project. This press release can be found on the ESO web site at www.eso.org/outreach/press-rel/pr-1998/pr-13-98.html

First Vendors' Meeting

The first vendors' meeting was held during the final week of September in Tucson. The purpose of this meeting was to introduce vendors to the MMA antenna design and procurement process. Information about this event and other aspects of the MMA antenna work can be found on Jeff Kingsley's home page at www.tuc.nrao.edu/~jkingsle/nraonl/nraonl.html

MMA Internal Review Report

The MMA conducted an Internal Review in July in which several important issues were raised, including: flowdown of scientific requirements to technical requirements, computational imaging requirements, array configuration and system design. Details of this meeting can be in the report at http://www.alma.nrao.edu/committees/MOC/internalreview.html

First Vendors
Meeting

MMA Internal
Review Report

MMA Oversight
Committee
Report

MMA Advisory
Committee
Minutes

MMA Advisory
Committee
Annual Meeting

New Memos!

NSF MMA Oversight Committee Report

The NSF MMA Oversight Committee (MMAOC) has reviewed the MMA Project for a second time at a meeting held at the NSF on August 4th; comments were made regarding the progress of the Design and Development Phase of the Project. The overall opinion is that the MMA has made "good initial steps in forming the necessary baseline definition and management structures." The entire report can be viewed at www.alma.nrao.edu/committees/MOC/mmaocreport.html

MMA Advisory Committee Teleconference Minutes
September 17, 1998

Project Status Report (Bob Brown)
The D&D phase of the project officially began in June of this year when NSF released the first $9M. An additional $9M is expected for next year, but it has not been approved by Congress, yet. The D&D phase is scheduled to end in the Spring of 2001 and hopefully will smoothly transition into the construction phase.

The pacing item in the D&D phase is antenna design and procurement. As was mentioned in the report on the Internal Review, the completion of the antenna bid document has been moved forward to the end of this year in order to give potential contractors more time to design. It is hoped to have a signed contract for a prototype antenna to be delivered in two years.

European Cooperation
On Sept. 3, 1998 a meeting between NSF administrators (Van Horn, Dickman, and Eisenstein) and European representatives from the ESO countries and the UK. At this meeting, it was agreed to negotiate to merge the LSA and MMA D&D phases.

A European Coordinating Committee will be formed which will be responsible for coordinating and organizing the European partners and for coordinating with the US. This committee will be the single interface with which the US will interact.

The Europeans hope to get all their members together by the end of 1998 and it is hoped to have a Memorandum of Agreement between the US and the European partners ready by mid 1999.

Japanese Collaboration
The Japanese are still very much interested in collaborating but they are unlikely to have major funding until several other projects, which are ahead of the LMSA in the funding queue are funded. They have funds to produce a prototype antenna which they would like to test with our prototype on the Chilean site, but our antenna isn't scheduled to go to Chile until 2002. This collaboration is much less advanced than that with the Europeans.

The complete record of the minutes from this meeting can be found at www.alma.nrao.edu/committees/MAC/macminutes_sept98.html

First Vendors
Meeting

MMA Internal
Review Report

MMA Oversight
Committee
Report

MMA Advisory
Committee
Minutes

MMA Advisory
Committee
Annual Meeting

New Memos!

The MMA Advisory Committee (MAC) will meet in Chicago on November 21, 1998. If there are issues which you would like to bring to the MAC for emphasis at this meeting, please send them to Ed Churchwell (Chair of the MAC), or any member of the MAC. A list of the MAC membership can be found by clicking Library on the MMA Homepage.

New MMA Memos!

There have been six new reports added to the MMA Memo List since the last newsletter. Included in these reports is the Chajnantor Site Hydrology Report written in June 1996 and recently scanned into electronic form so that it could be made more widely available.

230	"Preliminary Report on Water Supply, Millimeter Array Project, National Radio Astronomy Observatory"	Francisco Townsend G.	6/96
229	"Some Comments on Instrumental Phase Calibration"	A.R. Thompson, D.S. Bagri	9/98
228	"Analysis Of Tradeoffs In J-T Refrigerator Design"	Larry R. D'Addario	9/98
227	"On the Noise Properties of Balanced Amplifiers"	A.R. Kerr	9/98
226	"A, B, C, and D configurations in the shape of concentric circles with fixed pads at the common circumferences"	L. Kogan	9/98
225	"Radiometer Calibration at the Cassegrain Secondary Mirror"	D. Bock, J. Welch, M. Fleming, D. Thornton	8/98