RadioAstron Announcement of Opportunity - 1

The space VLBI mission RadioAstron, led by the Astro Space Center (ASC) of Lebedev Physical Institute,
provides a range of specific and unique capabilities for detecting and imaging sources of cosmic radio emission
at highest angular resolution. The optimal utilization of these capabilities relies on the construction and
execution of a balanced scientific program for the Mission.

The scientific program of the RadioAstron will consist of three major parts: the Early Science Program (ESP),
Key Science Program (KSP), and General Observing Time (GOT) projects. The Early Science Program, currently
underway and planned to continue through 2012 until the middle of 2013, explores the main scientific capabilities
of the RadioAstron observations and paves the way to subsequent engagement in the KSP and GOT programs.

Following the completion of the ESP observations, the RadioAstron KSP will commence in July 2013. The KSP
is aimed specifically at bringing the focus on the areas of strongest scientific impact of RadioAstron and ensuring
a long-lasting scientific impact of the Mission. The KSP observations within the AO-1 period will be carried out
between July 2013 and June 2014 and will have a shared-risk nature since a number of observing modes
have not yet been fully tested by the ASC.

Proposals are now invited for the RadioAstron Key Science Program experiments. The KSP application is a two-stage
process. An initial Letter of Intent (LoI) should be directed to the Mission by 17 October 2012 . Each team submitting
a LoI is expected to participate in the KSP consortia organization meeting that will be held at the Max-Planck-Institute
for Radio Astronomy in Bonn on 3-4 December, 2012. Based on the positive feedback from the Mission and discussions
with other potential KSP proposers during the December meeting, the resulting KSP consortia are expected to be
prepare full KSP proposals to be submitted by 8 February 2013 to the Mission and to the respective
ground radio telescopes required for the specific observations.

Letters of Intent and full proposals are to be submitted by e-mail as single pdf files to the address: ra_submit@asc.rssi.ru

List of AO-1 related documents