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Executive Summary

We invite members of the UK community to propose value added contributions to the commissioning of the Vera C. Rubin Observatory as part of LSST:UK’s in-kind package. This call for proposals follows acceptance of the commissioning element of our in-kind proposal, and initiates the detailed development and approval of the UK’s commissioning team and plans. Our in-kind “recipient group”, namely Rubin’s System Integration Test and Commissioning (SITCOM) team, have identified on-summit support of wavefront sensor sub-system commissioning as a high priority, in addition to a wider team that analyses commissioning data remotely in part-time roles while based at their home institute. All such roles are envisaged as lasting 1-2 years during the 2022 and 2023 calendar years. Our in-kind proposal included 3 staff years of new STFC funding for UK commissioning contributions, split roughly 50-50 between our summit and remote teams. Given the limited funding, and the exciting nature of this opportunity, we anticipate that most members of the UK commissioning team will be unfunded, volunteering a fraction of their research time. Whilst we envisage most of the proposals submitted in reponse to this call will come from groups that submitted an Expression of Interest in 2020, this call is open to all Uk colleagues regardless of previous expression of interest. This call includes background information on the process followed to date, examples of value-added contributions sought by SITCOM, and details of the rights and responsibilities of SITCOM team members, including individuals who join through this call. This call for proposals is coordinated with the recent Announcement of Opportunity for Community Engagement with Rubin Observatory Commissioning Effort in the US and Chile, however UK colleagues are only eligible to respond this UK-specific call. Proposals in response to this UK-specific call must be prepared using this template, and submitted to lusc_pm@mlist.is.ed.ac.uk before 5pm UTC September 30, 2021. Questions or concerns about this call for proposals may be directed to Graham Smith (gps@star.sr.bham.ac.uk) and Bob Mann (rgm@roe.ac.uk).

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This opportunity follows the Rubin Observatory's acceptance of the commissioning component of LSST:UK's In-kind proposal to Rubin Observatory, which incorporated input from the 21 UK groups that submitted Expressions of Interest (EoI) in response to the August 2020 call for interest. The proposal submission deadline will be followed by an internal UK review of proposals, with a remit that includes appropriate peer review of any funded effort requested in the proposals. This will be followed by preparation of a full UK proposal that integrates all accepted individual proposals, and submission of this full proposal to SITCOM leadership in late October 2021. The overall aim is for the UK contingent in the SITCOM team to be selected by the end of 2021 and to commence on-boarding and training in early 2022. The following table summarises this timeline:

2. Scope

Whilst we envisage that most of the proposals submitted in response to this call will be from groups that submitted an EoI, proposals from groups that did not submit an EoI are very welcome. We encourage discussion and collaboration between groups when developing proposals in response to this call, and include a summary of the EoIs submitted in 2020 in Appendix 1 so as to facilitate such discussion.

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This appendix lists colleagues who submitted an Expression of Interest in 2020 and who have given permission for their contact details and EoI titles to be shared.

Appendix 2: Key extracts from the commissioning component of LSST:UK in-kind proposal

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