Relations to Existing Programmes

In the documentation for the pre-launch Call, it was stated that the main use of the Supplemental Call would be ``to modify and/or extend and/or re-direct existing programmes.'' In February 1996, at the end of the Performance Verification phase, the OTAC held the planned review of the observing programme in the light of the in-orbit performance. One of the outputs of this review was to request Observers, who wished to increase the time for their programme(s), to make proposals in response to the Supplemental Call. Thus, although completely new proposals are not excluded, priority will be given to Supplemental Call proposals aimed at continuing, completing and extending existing ISO observing programmes.

To implement this policy, the practical points listed below should be noted and followed by proposers:

• All Supplemental Call proposals must be self-standing, even if they are a continuation of existing programmes, i.e. proposers must not assume that OTAC is familiar with the original proposal.
• Proposers must use a new proposal identification (PROPID) for each Supplemental Call proposal under their OBSID; i.e. do not re-use a PROPID that was used in the pre-launch Call, even if it is a continuation of the same programme.
• Proposers requesting additional time for a specific programme must identify this in the proposal abstract. A default line for editing will be provided in the template file. The scientific justification must, obviously, address the status of the existing programme as well as the expected increased return if the time were to be increased.
• When applying for more time for a specific proposal, proposers may wish to transfer time from the existing programme. This only applies for priority 1 and 2 time. An example may make the concept clearer. As a result of the pre-launch Call, an Observer may have a programme consisting of 5 observations each lasting 1000 secs. The Observer would like to devote substantially more time to each observation but does not want to drop observations. Thus, he/she can make a Supplemental Call proposal for the same 5 observations but requesting, say, 3000 secs on each (e.g. for wider wavelength coverage, more filters, etc). However, as he/she would drop the original observations, the actual new request is 2000 secs per observation as 1000 secs has been transferred or ``replaced''.

  In this case, a proposer must indicate in the proposal abstract that time is being replaced from a specific existing programme; a default line for editing will be provided in the template file. The rationale for making the change must be included in the scientific justification and the relevant xxx_REPLACED fields must be filled in. The User's Manual for IRPSS gives further details.

• As a result of the pre-launch Call, OTAC provided that the necessary oversubscription in ISO's mission data base of observations by recommending allocation of so-called priority 3 time to specific proposals. The mission planning system only schedules such observations if no close-by higher priority targets with suitable observation durations are available at that time. Note that existing priority 3 observations, which have not already been observed, are not included in the reserved observation list. Under the Supplemental Call, an Observer with priority 3 time may make a proposal to have this time ``upgraded''to higher priority. To do this, a new proposal with IRPSS should be made with a target list containing all observations for which higher priority time is requested. The proposal abstract must contain a line indicating that an upgrade of priority 3 time is requested and must identify the original programme; a default line for editing will be provided in the template file.