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Previous: RadioAstron Mission Element Overview

• Long-Term Experiment Schedule
• Observation Summary File (OSF)
• GRT (Ground Radio Telescope) Schedule Files

Long-Term Experiment Schedule

• RSOG to GOCG and to Mission Elements

What: Long-term experiment schedules will describe the RadioAstron observing schedule on time scales of weeks up to the full Announcement of Opportunity period, as required. The file will be revised regularly to incorporate new information on the spacecraft orbit, spacecraft constraints, resource availability, and operational efficiency. The long-term experiment schedule will be available on a restricted access basis to all mission elements.

How: The long-term schedulers will produce two files: GSTS-file (General Space Telescope Schedule) to be used by GOCG and LTS-file for all mission elements. Filenames will be of the form 991127JAN98.gst(lts), where 991127 is the date when the GSTS(LTS) file was written and DEC99 is the month covered by the file. A modified GSTS(LTS), will be based on the current SRS file produced by GOCG. The SRS file is the MASTER file for all other files used in scheduling. It will contain updated tracking station allocations, orbit measurements, control sessions etc.; the SRS file will keep all information necessary to schedule ground radio telescopes. Modified GSTS(LTS) will be generated with the naming convention RAYYMMDD-MMDD-MMDD.gst(lts) (e.g. 991128-1205-0111.gst) where YYMMDD is the date the file was generated, and the following MMDDs are the start and end dates of the schedule respectively.

When: The files will be generated before each of the 4 month duration GRT blocks, and as often as required between these times. Modified GSTS and SRS files will be generated from the current SRS file approximately weekly.

Where: The files are placed in /RadioAstron/raoper/schedule/gsts on the RSOG FTP site. A one-line-per-experiment summary of the long-term schedule will be made available from the RadioAstron WWW site.

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Observation Summary File (OSF)

• RSOG to Correlators, GTS and GRT

What: The Observation Summary File is a condensed version of the long-term schedule GSTS file with additional details from the proposal cover sheets, with emphasis on which mission elements are participating in each observation, and for what length of time they will be recording VLBI data. This information will enable correlators to meet the tape needs of the various sites. The file will describe activities for the one week of the mission from Monday through Sunday~UTC, continue!!!!!ing to the end of any tracking pass that starts before the end of Sunday~!!!!!!!UTC. A summary of tape usage for GRTs will appear at the end of the file.

How: The file format will be described in "RadioAstron Observation Summary File Format". The files are named YYMMDD_YYMMDD.osf[.v], where the YYMMDDs are the first and last dates covered by the file.

When: The OSF file will be generated 4-5 weeks in advance of the week it describes. Particularly during the early stages of the mission it is expected that the schedule will change, sometimes significantly, in the intervening four weeks. Also, the GSTS file uses a simple algorithm to assign tracking stations, which may differ from the assignment made in the SRS. Once the SRS and GRT schedule files have been made, a revised OSF will be generated, which will more accurately describe the time and tape usage of the mission elements. The Observation Summary Files will be made available by Thursday at 1200~!!!!!UTC.

Where: The files are placed in /RadioAstron/raoper/schedule/grtsched/summary on the RSOG FTP site.

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GRT (Ground Radio Telescope) Schedule Files

• RSOG to Regional Servers

What: The RSOG will produce schedule files for all GRTs participating in a particular observation, in the format required by each GRT.

How: Schedule files for GRTs will be based on the current SRS file. File-names will include the observation code and, for those GRTs not using VEX files, the 2-letter station code (see "Suggested 2-letter Observatory codes"). Further details will be given in "Scheduling of GRTs for RadioAstron".

When: These files will be posted on the GRT regional servers 2 weeks before the observation or, in the case of the EVN, 2 weeks before the VLBI session commences.

Where: The file for each participating GRT is placed on the appropriate regional server. The regional server and 2-letter code for each GRT is given in !!!!!!!!!1\S \ref{GRTscheds}.