Panel Reports—New Worlds, New Horizons in Astronomy and Astrophysics (2011) / Chapter Skim
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7 Report of the Panel on Optical and Infrared Astronomy from the Ground
7 Report of the Panel on Optical and Infrared Astronomy from the Ground
Pages 311-378
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From page 311... ...
for the construction of a Giant Segmented Mirror Telescope (GSMT) , the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST)
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Continuing into the 21st century, the science opportunities in the coming decade promise to be equally great, as the OIR community stands ready to build the next generation of facilities. A GSMT, with a collecting area exceeding 100 times that of the Hubble Space Telescope and with a 10-times-better angular resolution, will open up discovery space in remarkable new directions, probe dense environments within the Milky Way and in nearby galaxies, and -- coupled with advanced adaptive optics (AO)
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From page 313... ...
Having considered proposals from the research community for new large facili ties, the panel's conclusions with respect to large projects are as follows: • The science cases for a 25- to 30-m Giant Segmented Mirror Telescope and for the proposed Large Synoptic Survey Telescope are even stronger today than they were a decade ago. • Based on the relative overall scientific merits of GSMT and LSST, the panel ranks GSMT higher scientifically than LSST, given the sensitivity and resolution of GSMT.
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From page 314... ...
3. The panel recommends that NSF, following completion of the necessary re views, should commit to supporting the construction of its selected GSMT through the MREFC line at an equivalent of a 25 percent share of the total construction cost, thereby securing a significant public partnership role in one of the GSMT projects.
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From page 315... ...
OIR examples of activities that could be proposed for the program include massively multiplexed optical/near-IR spectrographs, adaptive optics systems for existing telescopes, and solar initiatives following on from the Advanced Technology Solar Telescope. The panel recommends funding this program at a level of approximately $20 million annually.
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From page 316... ...
would greatly benefit ground based OIR science in the coming decade and would provide critical support for some of the medium and large programs. The panel recommends the small pro grams in the following, unprioritized list: • An adaptive optics technology-development program at the $2 million to $3 million per year level; • An interferometry operations and development program at a level of ap proximately $3 million per year; • An integrated ground-based-astronomy data-archiving program starting at a level of approximately $2 million per year and ramping down to approximately $1 million per year; and • A "strategic theory" program at the level of approximately $3 million per year.
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OIR astronomy that is consistent with historical federal funding of astronomy and, more importantly, is poised to enable astronomers to answer the compelling science questions of the decade, as well as to open new windows of discovery. The proposed program involves an increased emphasis on partnerships, including NSF, DOE, NASA, U.S.
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synoptic survey telescope to achieve an unprecedented combination of sky coverage, faint limiting magnitude, and time-domain coverage. The medium activities were an Advanced Technology Solar Telescope (ATST, called AST in AANM)
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Quasars, powered by early supermassive black holes, have been discovered back to redshifts of 6. Observations of a z = 8.2 GRB have opened a new window for studying the deaths of massive stars when the universe was only 4 percent of its current age.
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. Top right: The first directly imaged multiple planet system (HR 8799; adaptive optics imaging in 2008)
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SOURCE: V Belokurov and the Sloan Digital Sky Survey.
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Two that stand out as particularly important are (1) the evolution of adaptive optics systems into scientifically ver
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The development of adaptive optics (AO) into a workhorse technology on most large ground-based telescopes (e.g, the Keck, VLT, Gemini, MMT, the Hale telescope, and the Dunn solar telescopes)
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Large, well-reduced, statistically rigorous data sets are now standard tools in most topics of OIR astronomy. These data sets are enabled by powerful instruments and a renewed commitment to data pipelines and archives.
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OPPORTUNITIES IN OIR SCIENCE The Astro2010 Science Frontiers Panels have identified key research questions and discovery areas for the next decade. Ground-based OIR astronomy laid the foundations in many of these areas and is poised to enable transformative studies
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Large-scale, high sensitivity imaging surveys at high cadence will open the way for a thorough explo ration of time-domain astronomy. New facilities, coupled with upgraded existing public and private resources, will enable astronomers to seek answers to some of the key scientific questions of our era -- from the nature of dark matter and dark energy to the formation and evolution of galaxies, stars, and planets.
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How do rotation and magnetic fields affect stars? Solar Stellar 2.
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3. How do black holes grow, radiate, and influence AO their surroundings?
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OIR telescope facilities, midscale instrumentation, and current interferometry capabilities to addressing the science questions and discovery (D) areas identified by the five Astro2010 Science Frontiers Panels: Black indicates strong contributions to an SFP question or discovery area, dark gray indicates an important contribution, light gray indicates a minor contribution, and no coloring indicates no or no significant contribution.
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These observations will be complemented by synoptic surveys that will provide the first census of the size-frequency and compositional distributions of trans-neptunian objects in the outermost regions of our own solar system, reaching magnitude r ~ 24.5 and trans-neptunian objects with diameters as small as 25 km. New OIR ground-based capabilities will also open new windows on one of the most critical astrophysical processes: the formation of stars (PSF 1, Table 7.1)
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The surfaces of nearby stars can be directly imaged using long-baseline infrared inter ferometry, probing photospheric distortions caused by rapid rotation or binary interactions. In the wider field, repeated full-sky monitoring by synoptic surveys promises a complete statistical view of stellar cycles and rare stellar events, includ
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The star formation histories of galaxies, the growth of central black holes, the properties of dark matter halos, and the way interactions between those quantities are reflected in present-day galactic morphology are all crucial areas for research in the next decade (GAN 3, 4, and D; GCT 1, 3)
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SOURCE: Ben Dilday and the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) Collaboration.
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. Ground-based OIR observations will discover fainter and more distant satellites and streams, confirming their existence, measuring velocity dispersions and dark matter properties, and dramatically constraining the forma tion of structure in ΛCDM.
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High-angular-resolution imaging and spectroscopy can focus on galactic cores (including the galactic center) ; measure stellar and gaseous mo tions to 1-kms–1 accuracy, more than an order of magnitude better than current measurements; and probe the detailed structure of the stellar cusps and the mass of nuclear black holes.
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From page 336... ...
The new facilities and programs outlined in the following section will be integral to successful progress in the next decade. FUTURE PROGRAMS IN OIR ASTRONOMY This section describes the projects and activities that the OIR Panel (henceforth the panel)
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The GSMT projects currently under development in the United States are 25 to 30-m-class telescopes for optical and near-IR observations with instruments that will open new frontiers of research across the entire optical and near-IR spectral regions observable from the ground. GSMT is a versatile observatory that will push back today's limits in imaging and spectroscopy to open up new possibilities for the most important scientific problems identified by the Science Frontiers Panels.
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TABLE 7.2 Five of the Key Science Programs That Can Be Addressed Only with a GSMT SFP Science Capability Synergies Question PSF 2, 3 Direct detection and spectroscopy of giant exoplanets; High-sensitivity adaptive optics JWST, orbital measurement and characterization of disk (AO) -assisted coronagraphy ALMA environments and IFU spectroscopy GAN D, Orbital characteristics of faint sources near the galactic High-sensitivity, high-precision GCT 3 center; measuring the black hole mass and R0 to 1 percent AO-assisted astrometry in and testing GR in the medium-field regime crowded fields SSE 2, D; Spectroscopy and imaging of supernovae and GRBs and High-sensitivity, high-precision LSST, CFP 2 their environments; characterizing the progenitors of Type AO-assisted photometry and JWST Ia supernovae and testing spectroscopy in crowded fields GAN 4, Radial-velocity and proper-motion measurements for High-sensitivity, high-precision GCT 1 hundreds of stars in dwarf galaxies; probing velocity AO-assisted astrometry and anisotrop, and the nature and form of the underlying dark spectroscopy in crowded fields matter GCT 4, 5 Near-infrared spectroscopy of galaxies and large, forming High-sensitivity, high-precision JWST, star clusters that are gravitationally lensed or that are rich spectroscopy at the faintest ALMA in massive stars at redshifts z > 7; probing the physical magnitudes properties of the first stars
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The project is now in the design development phase, which is scheduled to end in 2011 with a system preliminary design review and submission of the implementation plan for construction and commissioning. The project recognized early on that production of the primary mirror segments is on the critical path and acted in 2005 to cast the first 8.4-m primary mirror segment in the Steward Observatory Mirror Laboratory (SOML)
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and GSMT with adaptive optics (right)
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The technical level of TMT is enhanced by a work breakdown structure that is five to seven levels deep for the majority of the project, a complete and well-staffed systems-engineering approach, and organized and "well-positioned" software development. In collaboration with the European ELT project, which has substantially similar mirror segments, four polishers are currently engaged in studies of large-scale segment production.
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Having assessed these two sources of independent information on the GSMT projects, the OIR Panel found that the technology needed to build a GSMT exists. In summary, the panel found as follows.
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require TABLE 7.3 Comparison of Adaptive Optics (AO) Component Specifications for Three Systems Current State of the Art Keck AO LGS (2003)
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that was roughly 60 percent higher than the cost appraisal provided by GMT project personnel, which would take the cost without operations from $689 million to $1.1 billion. The cost risks for the primary mirrors are increased polishing and metrology costs above current estimates and the cost growth associ ated with a 24-month schedule delay.
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The independent estimate of the schedule risk is 3 to 6 years, depending on the approach used to fabricate the primary mirror segments. Based on the outcomes of the independent assessments, the panel concluded that both U.S.-led GSMT projects should in the near term undergo an indepen dent full cost and schedule review as they proceed through any NSF down-select, preliminary design review, or major facility review process.
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Maintaining this momentum is vital to the health of science in this country, as serious international challenges are faced. The panel concluded that without community involvement in a GSMT project, U.S.
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The LSST project, a consortium of 30 universities and research institutions, plans to build a survey telescope with an 8.4-m primary mirror and a 6.7-m effective aperture on Cerro Pachon, Chile. Its 3.2-gigapixel camera, covering a 9.6-deg2 field of view, will give LSST an effective entendue of 319 m2 deg2, which will be more than 10 times greater than that of any other telescope (Figure 7.15)
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. This value in 3 LSST Science Collaborations and LSST Project 2009, LSST Science Book, Version 2.0, arXiv: 0912.0201, http://www.lsst.org/lsst/scibook.
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Because the camera is both a tech nically challenging item and on the critical path for the LSST schedule, the panel finds it prudent to use the project's cost appraisal pending the detailed cost review that will occur following the NSF preliminary design review. The independent
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The panel believes that the LSST project has vigorously and effectively engaged this aspect of its mission and concludes that the project is well scoped and costed, with a detailed science-operations plan. Based on its own analysis of the information provided to it by the proponents of LSST and by the survey's independent contractor, the panel concluded that the LSST project is in an advanced state and ready for immediate implementation.
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The panel concluded that a crucial goal for ground-based OIR astronomy in the coming decade should be to realize the potential of the combination of these facilities as linchpins for an upgraded comprehensive U.S. OIR system of telescopes.
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What controls the mass, radius, and spin of compact stellar remnants? FIGURE 7.17 Venn diagram showing the interrelationship of GSMT and LSST for addressing the main science questions identified by the Astro2010 7-17.eps Science Frontiers Panels (see Table 7.1)
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Providing significant en hancements over current capabilities requires complex systems that employ new technologies, such as large-scale multiplexed spectrographs or advanced adaptive optics. • Data management and software complexity.
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• Next-generation AO systems, ranging from wider-field-of-view systems based on ground-layer and multi-conjugate AO to improved narrow-field systems, to provide diffraction-limited capability at visible-light wavelengths. Such systems will enable diffraction-limited spectroscopy of the cores of nearby galaxies to study the environments of massive black holes (GCT 3)
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Selection criteria would include scientific merit, connections to research pri orities set out in agency reports such as those of the AAAC Task Forces, project management, quality of the team, realism of the project plan, workforce develop ment benefits, and the outcome of a conceptual design review. Public access to data products after an appropriate period (most likely through the archive centers recommended below in this report)
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Combined, these reports suggest that a true system is manifold, including telescopes from 1-m aperture up to the 30-m-class GSMTs with telescopes at every level provid ing fundamental input toward answering the leading science questions of the next decade. Smaller telescopes are an integral component because they provide survey and time-domain support complementing large-telescope science, execute time-intensive programs unique to small apertures, provide the hands-on training ground for the next generation of observers and instrumentalists, and can serve as dedicated, single-instrument facilities, focused on specific scientific questions.
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; Big Bear Solar Observatory (courtesy of Big Bear Solar Observatory/New Jersey Institute of Technology) ; McMath-Pierce/SOLIS solar telescope (courtesy of NOAO/AURA/NSF)
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Doubling TSIP funding and introducing a mid-scale instrumentation program provides the resources needed to develop the incentives to realize these goals. An increase in the annual TSIP to $8 million would allow several instruments in the $5 million to $10 million cost range to be funded continuously.
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• The expanded TSIP and the mid-scale instrumentation program both pro vide opportunities to direct these instrumentation funds strategically toward op timizing and balancing the U.S. telescope system.
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Adaptive Optics Development Program As discussed above in the section "Introduction and Context" the near-IR adaptive optics systems are routinely used on the world's largest telescopes, and as discussed in the section "Future Programs in OIR Astronomy," the technological framework exists to extend this capability to a GSMT. AO at visible-light wave lengths, however, is currently feasible only on very bright targets and will require
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Open-access ar chives are commonplace for space missions and can double scientific productivity for a small fraction of the original mission cost. Archival research is a growing com ponent of ground-based OIR astronomy, particularly for student and postdoctoral research.
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The agencies should coordinate support for archive develop ment and maintenance, so that observatories can focus their individual resources on data pipelines. Broad public access to data and data products must be a strong consideration when significant public funding is provided for private facilities.
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program in OIR astronomy during the 2010-2020 decade the panel assessed the level of NSF-AST support for continuing activities and recommends continued support at the current levels in two areas:
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• Funding for NOAO facilities should continue at approximately the 2010 level. In addition, the panel identified two continuing activities that need enhanced support in the coming decade: OIR astronomy grants programs and the Gemini Observatory.
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The Gemini Observa tory, properly instrumented, can address many of the science questions identified by the Science Frontiers Panels and provide ground-based spectroscopic follow-up for LSST discoveries and support for space missions. The Gemini Observatory, however, is a partnership of seven nations, with the 51.12 percent U.S.
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Efficiencies from streamlining Gemini operations, possibly achieved through a re-forming of the national observatory to include NOAO and Gemini under a single operations team, should be applied to compensate for the loss of the United Kingdom from the Gemini partnership, thereby increasing the U.S. share.
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The expanded TSIP, and particularly ReSTAR, instrumentation opportunities inherent in the recommendations above directly address this need and ensure the contin ued existence of innovative and flexible instrumentation programs at federal and nonfederal institutions alike. Interagency Collaboration As the principal agency supporting ground-based OIR astronomy in the United States, NSF should continue to lead the federal efforts for the OIR system as described in this section and work with DOE as it becomes increasingly involved in system activities.
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Conclusions and Recommendations for Large Programs Having considered proposals from the research community for new large facili ties, the OIR Panel reached the following conclusions for large programs: • The science cases for a 25- to 30-m Giant Segmented Mirror Telescope and for the proposed Large Synoptic Survey Telescope are even stronger today than they were a decade ago. • Based on the relative overall scientific merits of GSMT and LSST, the panel ranks GSMT higher scientifically than LSST, given the sensitivity and resolution of GSMT.
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3. The panel recommends that NSF, following the completion of the neces sary reviews, should commit to supporting the construction of its selected GSMT through the MREFC line at an equivalent of a 25 percent share of the total con struction cost, thereby securing a significant public partnership role in one of the GSMT projects.
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From page 370... ...
Proposals to the medium-scale instrumentation pro gram should be peer reviewed. OIR examples of activities that could be proposed for the program include massively multiplexed optical/near-IR spectrographs, adaptive optics systems for existing telescopes, and solar initiatives following on from the Advanced Technology Solar Telescope.
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From page 371... ...
would greatly benefit ground-based OIR science in the coming decade and provide critical support for some of the medium and large programs. • The panel recommends the small programs in the following, unprioritized list: -- An adaptive optics technology development program at the $2 million to $3 million per year level; -- An interferometry operations and development program at a level of ap proximately $3 million per year; -- An integrated ground-based-astronomy data-archiving program starting at a level of approximately $2 million per year and ramping down to approximately $1 million per year; and -- A "strategic theory" program at the level of approximately $3 million per year.
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national observatory to include NOAO and Gemini under a single operations team, should be applied to compensate for the loss of the United Kingdom from the Gemini partnership, thereby increasing the U.S. share.
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Together, they address the core of astronomy and astrophysics, including 18 of the 20 science questions and all 5 of the discovery areas identified by the Astro2010 Science Frontiers Panels. The OIR Panel's two medium-scale recommendations address clear gaps in the current approach and will support a range of specialized instruments and telescopes that will provide a variety of tools to address central science questions from many angles and to strengthen the overall U.S.
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In addition, NASA should be engaged as a full collaborator supporting construction, operation, and analysis activities of ground-based OIR facilities where such joint interchange will advance the science and programmatic objectives of both agencies. Total Costs and Schedules for Large Projects The technical, cost, and schedule risks for the large projects are described in "Large Programs" under "Future Programs in OIR Astronomy." For ease of refer ence, Table 7.5 provides a summary of the construction and operations costs and construction schedules provided by the individual projects and the results of the TABLE 7.5 Summary of Estimates of Construction and Operations Costs (FY2009 dollars)
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The available calibration data for ground-based projects were less than those available for space-based projects; this was a limiting factor in the independent CATE assessment, particularly for the two GSMT projects. The independent CATE assessment also estimated schedule risk in all three projects, and these values are listed in Table 7.5.
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LSST Funding The panel notes that the LSST project has advanced to the final design phase, which will take it to the point of readiness for construction and also prepare it for the NSF critical design review. As noted above, this panel report recommends that NSF should commit to supporting the construction of LSST, with construction starting no later than 2014 in order to maintain the project's momentum, capture existing expertise, and achieve critical synergy with GSMT.
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government be come a full partner in a GSMT project at the 25 percent level as soon as possible and that NSF should establish a process to choose which of the two U.S.-led GSMT concepts will receive a founding-member public investment. After selection, negotiations to establish U.S.
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From page 378... ...
Adaptive optics development program $18M Ground-based archive $14M Interferometry operations and technology development $27M Strategic theory $26M Continuing Activities NSF-AST research grants program (AAG) $490M (includes $40M increase)
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