On May 25, 1993, representatives from NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA) agreed to the outlines of NASA's participation in ESA's Infrared Space Observatory (ISO) project. NASA will provide a second ground station to increase the amount of usable time on ISO from 12 or 13 to 16 hours per day, in return for half an hour per day of observing time for US astronomers. The formal agreement is being processed by the legal and foreign affairs offices of NASA and ESA, but no obstacles are expected to a timely and final approval. This arrangement complements a similar agreement between ESA and the Japanese Space Agency (ISAS), whereby ISAS obtains a similar block of time in return for funding a third shift at the ESA ground station to take advantage of the additional downlink capability.
These agreements highlight the importance of ISO to infrared astronomy in this decade. With a launch expected around September 1995, ISO will be the premier infrared astronomy mission of the 1990's. ISO scientific capabilities are discussed elsewhere in this newsletter. About two-thirds of the ISO mission time will be available to General Observers (GO's), and US astronomers will be able to compete for observing time in this category. One immediate outcome of the agreement, however, is to make observing time available for the following four key projects, known as Guaranteed Time Observations (GTO's), already selected by peer review in response to a NASA Research Announcement:
IPAC's goal is to have the most reliable and detailed information on the ISO mission and instruments available to support both US GTO and GO scientists at each phase of the mission: proposal preparation, observation planning, data analysis and mission archiving. To this end, IPAC is working with the ISO project and the four ISO instrument teams to develop or adopt software to be used in planning and ultimately reducing ISO observations. Details of these software collaborations are being arranged now and will be described in future newsletters. The first piece of IPAC software for ISO is IRSKY which combines rudimentary knowledge of the ISO instruments with access to the IRAS point source and image databases. IRSKY is already available for use over the networks, as described in detail elsewhere in this newsletter.
IPAC is also involved in organizing a special ISO session at the AAS Meeting in Washington, D.C. in January 1994. The purpose is to inform the US community about the ISO mission, its opportunities and schedule. Dedicated workshops may also be organized as the needs are clearly identified. The following is a brief list of key ISO milestones as currently scheduled: