Building ALMA with “Equal” Partners

Problems and Successes

Paul Vanden Bout (NRAO)HEAD – March 2013

ALMA is a Major Facility

• ALMA is the largest ground-based observatory in the world: construction cost of ~ 1.5 G$ (in current year dollars spent) and an annual operations cost of ~ 100 M$;

• Remote site in Chile at 5000m elevation;

• Scale required an international project.

ALMA Site at 5000m elevation

High Site Operations Facility

Mid-Level Operations Facility at 3000m

Antenna Transporter

Joint ALMA Office in Santiago

ALMA is International

• First truly global astronomical partnership;• Three major partners – North America, Europe,

and the Far East;• Twenty countries – NA (3), ESO (15), FE (2), and

Chile as host nation;• Observing time is shared NA(37.5%), ESO

(37.5%), FE (25%), with 5% from each partner for non-partner PIs, after Chile’s 10%. Single TAC. Shares to be long term averages.

No ALMA Partner Has A Majority Share

• Originally, NRAO proposed the MMA, ESO the LSA, and Japan the LMSA;

• NRAO & ESO joined projects to form ALMA on a 50:50 basis, the least share acceptable to both parties, Japan joining later (25% share).

Organization

• The three partner Executives are NRAO (AUI), ESO, and NAOJ;

• Executives were responsible for construction deliverables and now for their share of the operations - Joint ALMA Office (JAO) in Chile;

• Each Executive has a Project Manager and Project Scientist;

• ALMA Director is part of the JAO and has his own PM and PS.

Benefits

• ALMA is a much larger, more capable facility than could have been built by any of the partners working alone.

• Each construction deliverable was managed by a team led by the responsible partner but with team members from the other partners, providing a diversity of ideas and team expertise that led to a better product.

Problems

• Central authority is weak - the JAO, has many responsibilities but little authority;

• No partner has a controlling interest;• Progress is by consensus and this can be slow to

achieve;• There is a large burden on documentation and

communications;• Each partner is responsible for its own public

relations.

Example of a Problem

• Large deliverables were split between the NA and European partners, notably, the site development and antennas;

• The site work was an easy division of effort – NA took the more difficult high site and Europe took the larger mid-level facility;

• But the result for the antennas was two sets of different antennas (that meet same specs), with Japan adding two more designs.

Budget & Schedule

• Construction is on re-baselined schedule – inauguration held on March 13;

• Interim operations began in 2011 and first science was presented in December 2012;

• Full operations are to begin 2014;• Project was completed within re-baselined budget

set in 2005, a +44% increase: difficult site (1/5), increases in material costs (2/5), and project complexity (1/4); +1y added to schedule was driven by antenna delivery schedule.

Would ALMA Have Been Better With A Different Organizational Scheme?

• Let one partner take the lead? • Give the JAO more authority?

• Given the amounts of money involved, it is virtually certain that the funding sources would exert their prerogatives via their executives under any management scheme.

Is There a Better Model?

• Have large facilities built by single countries;• Share time between facilities on a fair basis.

• Would save the overhead that attends international projects, saving money;

• But projects would be harder to sell without the cachet of being international.

Bottom Line - Success

• ALMA works: a blindingly fast, flexible, mm/submm imaging machine;

• Oversubscription is a factor of roughly 10;• Initial science demonstrates breathtaking

speed the full array will have.

ALMA View of the Young Solar System Analog Disk Around AU Mic

Meredith A. MacGregor, David J. Wilner, Katherine A. Rosenfeld, Sean M. Andrews, Brenda Matthews, A. Meredith Hughes, Mark Booth, Eugene Chiang, James R. Graham, Paul Kalas, Grant Kennedy, Bruce Sibthorpe

2013 ApJ 762 L21

Feb 1 2013 Update 19Credit: D. J. Wilner

Hypothetical view with planet and moon

Central peak (star) with asteroid belt and disk/ring out to R=40 AU.

Kuiper Belt?

Goal: Cycle 0 project (191) to measure emission from known circumstellar material and potentially circumplanetary dust near the planet Fomalhaut b using the compact (3hrs) and extended configurations (Boley, Payne, Corder, Dent, Ford, Shabram)

No data

No data

Scattered starlight

Dust ring

Location of Fomalhaut

Coronagraphmask

20 arcseconds ~ 150 AU

Boley et al. astro-ph1204.0007

ALMA Cycle 0 Reference ImageBand 7 (870 μm)Dust Continuum

1.5” x 1.2”

The Formation of Planetary Systems: Fomalhaut

GSFC 7 November 2012