Questions:
1) Indicate your update on who the Project Manager is and what his/her responsibilities are;
2) Make a table of about 15-20 major milestones (ie identify a milestone and give the expected date of its completion); you can indicate that this a preliminary version that will be updated in the not too distant future.
3) Indicate why Dave Kieda was selected as Systems Engineer; he successfully ran the VERITAS Upgrade NSF MRI, is an independent authority etc….
4) Would you be able to make a simple cost comparison to a VERITAS telescope?
Question 1: Indicate your update on who the Project Manager is and what his/her responsibilities are;
The Project Manager (PM) for the MRI program is Robert Cameron, a staff scientist at SLAC. He has extensive experience in the performance and execution of large projects, principally in astrophysics space missions for NASA. He has been the manager of the Instrument Science Operations Center (ISOC) for the Large Area Telescope (LAT) on the Fermi gamma-ray satellite since 2004, and led the ISOC involvement in the pre-launch integration and test of the LAT, and has led the ISOC operations effort since the launch of Fermi in 2008. Prior to joining SLAC in 2004, he was an astrophysicist at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory (SAO) in
Cambridge, MA, between 1993 and 2004, where he worked with the Chandra
X-ray Observatory as Spacecraft Systems Scientist before and after launch, and was one of the Flight Directors for Chandra after launch. Prior to his time at SAO, he was the Instrument Operations Scientist for the OSSE detector on the Compton Gamma-ray Observatory at NRL between 1988 and 1992, coordinating OSSE integration and test support prior to launch and coordinating the operations support after launch. Within the CTA project, he has represented the US at some CTA Project Office meetings and participated as an internal reviewer in 2 reviews for the project.
The main tasks to be performed by the PM for the MRI project will be planning and scheduling and resource management; contract management and oversight; coordination with the Project Scientist effort led by Vladimir Vassiliev and Deputy Project Scientist Stefan Funk and with financial management and reporting to NSF performed at UCLA; coordination with the Systems Engineering effort led by David Kieda; coordination with software development and IT management effort lead by Brian Humensky; coordination of reviews and reports as required by NSF; and risk tracking and management.
Because of the ambitious schedule identified for the MRI program, with many design, development, and construction tasks parallelized across the mechanical (SCT-MECH), optical (SCT-OPT), camera (SCT-CAM), foundation (SCT-FOUND), and auxiliary (SCT-AUX) sub-systems, thorough oversight of milestones and prompt attention to schedule and cost threats will be established by the PM. Regular meetings with and reporting from the sub-systems leaders (Karen Byrum/Victor Guarino, Vladimir Vassiliev, James Buckley, Wystan Benbow, and Reshmi Mukherjee) will be organized, and reports provided to the NSF as required.
Program reviews will be organized and coordinated by the PM. For example, internal conceptual design reviews of all sub-systems and external CTA-level fabrication design reviews with an independent panel of reviewers (from CTA and outside communities) will be organized during the first and second years of the MRI program.
A full-earned value management system will not be used for financial tracking and reporting for this MRI project due to its relatively modest and constrained budget. Instead scheduled milestones will be used to track spending against detailed WBS of the project and its schedule. Costs will be tracked and compared to budgeted amounts on a monthly basis. Variances will be analyzed and reported. Contract management will also require regular reports from contractors and meetings as necessary. A university subcontracts will be established with each university as a vehicle to disperse funds to MRI collaborating institutions, and these university contracts will be monitored at UCLA, Barnard College, and UAH with input from the PM to ensure compliance with FAR regulations. The Financial Analysts at indicated lead Institutions on the MRI project will monitor invoices, placement of purchase orders, and payments through interaction with the PM.
The PM will coordinate closely with the lead project scientist (PS), deputy project scientist (DPS), lead systems engineer (SE), and IT manager (ITM) for the program. The PM will work with the PS/DPS, SE, and ITM to ensure needed analyses are performed and documented; specification requirements and interface control documents and other project documentation (e.g. quality, reliability, safety, etc.) are produced and controlled as required and the detailed WBS assembled. The PM will manage the change control and anomaly tracking and resolution processes. Finally the PM will have ultimate responsibility for risk management and tracking for the program.
Question 2: Make a table of about 15-20 major milestones (ie identify a milestone and give the expected date of its completion); you can indicate that this a preliminary version that will be updated in the not too distant future.
Files with Preliminary Milestones and FTE commitments of senior personnel of US institutions are attached. FTEs shown in the file reflect involvement of senior personal only and do not account for participation of engineers, postdocs, graduate students and staff at the participating institutions.
Question 3: Indicate why Dave Kieda was selected as Systems Engineer; he successfully ran the VERITAS Upgrade NSF MRI, is an independent authority etc….
Dave Kieda was selected as System Engineer for the project based on two major factors. The first is that he has vast successful experience for the Systems Engineering tasks. As VERITAS integration czar (2004-2007) he organized the successful system integration and deployment of the VERITAS telescopes, working with VERITAS collaborating institutions, the project office, and project manager to keep the VERITAS project on time and below budget, while exceeding the design performance targets for the telescopes. As PI of the VERITAS Upgrade MRI-R2 project, he organized the University group, national lab, and project office efforts to successfully accomplish the move of Telescope 1, the network and trigger upgrades, and the upgrade of the camera photomultiplier tubes. This project also was accomplished on time, and below budget.
The second factor is that Dave Kieda was not previously involved at significant level into activities described in the MRI proposal and therefore he represents independent authority for the management of potential conflicts of interests. His work as SE on this MRI project will be focused mostly on high-level system integration tasks and will be vastly based on the contributions from working groups of various SCT sub-systems. David Kieda major responsibilities will include maintenance of specifications, interface control, and other project documentation as well as coordination, integration, and control of compliance tasks. All these tasks will be accomplished in close cooperation with PS, PM, and sub-systems leaders.
Kieda’s current commitments include head of the gamma-ray group at the University of Utah, PI of the VERITAS Upgrade MRI-R2, and chair of the Department of Physics and astronomy. He has also made ongoing contributions to CTA-US, including work on CTA site selection. Consequently, he has successfully demonstrated his ability to actively balance similar multiple commitments on an ongoing basis since 2007. With completion of the focal plane upgrade of the VERITAS cameras in Summer 2012, Kieda’s time commitment to the VERITAS Upgrade MRI-R2 will be markedly reduced. Currently 97% of the MRI-R2 funds have been spent, and the remaining work on the MRI-R2 project centers upon final commissioning and spares. Consequently, Kieda’s time for working on this MRI project will be made available by the successful completion of the VERITAS Upgrade MRI-R2 project at the end of Summer 2012.
Kieda is the head of the gamma-ray group at the University of Utah, which includes research efforts in both HAWC and VERITAS. The VERITAS research effort is led by Profs. Kieda, Stephan LeBohec, and Andy Smith, with Kieda as the lead researcher. The HAWC research effort is led by Profs. Wayne Springer and Kieda, with Springer as the lead researcher. Regarding the Department Chairperson and HAWC commitments: Dave Kieda has been Chairperson of the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Utah since 2007. The standard term of Chairperson is a 3 year appointment, followed by a second 3 year reappointment. According to institutional tradition, it is extremely rare for a Chairperson to be re-appointed beyond the second term. Kieda’s second term as chair will complete in June 2013.
Question 4: Would you be able to make a simple cost comparison to a VERITAS telescope?
The construction cost of the base VERITAS instrument (2007), including R&D and infrastructure, was $16 M for 4 telescopes. The implied cost of $4M/telescope is misleading, however, because the construction and operation of the first telescope required substantial investments in R&D, engineering, mirror fabrication, mirror coating facilities, power and internet infrastructure, etc. Subsequent telescopes did not incur these costs. In addition, the First VERITAS telescope (#1) was built in two stages: A prototype phase (2003-2004) which had a partially populated (50%) focal plane photon sensors and electronics and partially filled optical reflector (~35%), and a completion of telescope #1 including populating the remaining photomultiplier tubes in the focal plane, and adding the remaining mirrors to the optical support structure (2004-2005). A more realistic breakdown is approximately $6M for the prototype telescope #1, $2M to complete Telescope #1, $4M for Telescope #2, $2M for telescope #3 and $2M for telescope #4.
The cost of the SCT telescope prototype described in this proposal ($3.8M NSF + $1.3M matching =$5.1M) includes one-time engineering and R&D costs as well as infrastructure costs associated with the design and construction of the first instrument of its type. In addition, significant amount of discretionary funds (>$1M) has already been provided by the Universities and National Labs during last several years to successfully accomplish initial R&D and prototyping for the project, which led to this MRI proposal. Consequently, we believe the most appropriate cost comparison would be with the development and construction cost of VERITAS prototype telescope #1 ($6M). Both projects have roughly comparable budgets, but SCT prototype has promise of vastly improved performance parameters comparing to VERITAS #1 as described in MRI proposal.