Guide to the XRISM Cycle 1 Program for US- and Canadian-based Proposers
Important Update
The XRISM Resolve instrument's Gate Valve (X-ray aperture door) has
not opened, thereby shifting Resolve's energy band from 0.3 - 12 keV
to 1.7 - 12 keV and lowering the effective area. While the XRISM
team will continue to assess different approaches to opening the
Gate Valve, the Cycle-1 program will be carried out with the closed
Gate Valve configuration. Proposals must justify the science case given the closed Gate Valve and shift in energy band.
Note that the Xtend instrument is not affected by this.
[Updated on Jan 11, 2024]
Because the Resolve aperture door ("gate valve") has not yet opened, the exposure time limit for Cycle 1 GO
proposals has been increased to 300 ks per pointing. However, the overall limit per proposal is still 600 ks.
This supersedes the instructions given in NASA Research Announcement D.18 XRISM General Observer - Cycle 1.
[Updated on Feb 14, 2024]
This NASA
Research Announcement (NRA) solicits General Observer (GO)
proposals for XRISM from U.S. and Canadian-based
PIs. For proposers from neither U.S. nor Canada,
please refer to the ESA
solicitation or the JAXA solicitation.
For the NASA solicitation, approximately 5.2 Ms of time will be
available in the observing period running approximately from August 1, 2024 - July 31, 2025. It is
anticipated that no more than $6.5M in funding will be made available to
support the analysis of targets accepted at priority A, B or C (if
observed) as well
as Supporting Atomic Physics (SAP) investigations.
Priority C targets will be observed on a "best-effort" basis.
In cases where the same target is selected in more than one national
program (JAXA, NASA, ESA),
the feasibility of merging the two (or three) investigations will be explored at
the International Merging meeting.
XRISM data from approved GO program observations (including
peer review approved TOO observations) have a nominal one-year
exclusive-use period commencing at the time of receipt of the
processed data by the observer.
Only PIs affiliated with, and located
at, a U.S. institution will be eligible for funding for accepted
XRISM proposals through NASA.
Proposals are due no later than
April 4, (Thursday), 2024.
There are two types of proposals with different submission procedures:
- Type-1 proposals should be submitted by 4:30 pm (EDT) via NASA HEASARC ARK/RPS.
- Type-2 proposals should be submitted by
11:59 pm (EDT) via NASA NSPIRES by an Authorized Organizational Representative (AOR) of the proposing organization.
For the ESA or JAXA solicitation, please
refer to the proposal deadline and submission methods at the ESA
site or the JAXA site.
3. Dual-Anonymous Review Proposals
Type-1 Phase-1 and Type-2 proposal review will be done in a dual-anonymous fashion.
Dual-anonymous peer review (DAPR) means that not only will the
proposers not know who their reviewers are, but the reviewers will not
know who the proposers are, at least not until after they have
evaluated the scientific merit of the proposal. This implementation of
DAPR will be based on that employed by NASA's
Science Mission Directorate.
The "Expertise and Resources Not Anonymized" document is distributed
to the panel for a subset of proposals. This is to allow the reviewers to assess the team
capabilities required to execute a given proposed science
investigation. This assessment will not affect the science grade and
will be used by the Selection Official to help determine whether there
would be any risks in funding the proposal.
Key Points
- Proposals should eliminate language that identifies the
proposers or institution, as discussed in the Type-1
Phase-1 Guidelines for Anonymous Proposals and Type-2 SAP DAPR instructions.
- PIs are required to upload an "Expertise and Resources Not Anonymized" PDF
through ARK or NSPIRES as a separate document when submitting the anonymized
Scientific/Technical/Management section.
- Proposals that do not follow these dual-anonymous guidelines
may be returned without review.
Additional information may also be found on the web at: https://science.nasa.gov/researchers/dual-anonymous-peer-review.
Additional details concerning Cycle 1 are given in the XRISM NRA.
There will be two types of proposals, (1) investigations requesting
observations of celestial targets using one or both of the XRISM
scientific instruments ("Type-1" or "Observing"); and, (2) theoretical and/or
experimental investigations of atomic physics processes critical to
enabling the fullest exploitation of the high-quality spectral data
expected to be obtained with the Resolve instrument ("Type-2" or "SAP", US proposers only).
Type-1 (Observing) Proposals
Type-1 proposals will undergo a two-stage proposal process. Phase-1 is for
observing proposals. Phase-2 is for budget proposals for successful
Phase-1 proposers who were awarded Priority A or B ratings by the
International Merging meeting.
Proposal submission is done via the
HEASARC ARK/RPS on-line system. Hard-copy submission is not required. The following
elements are required:
- Proposal form (cover page & general form, and one or more
pages of the Target form) generated by, and submitted through, ARK/RPS.
- Anonymized Scientific/Technical/Management section in PDF format,
not exceeding 4 pages, to be uploaded through ARK/RPS.
Note that the page limit includes figures, tables, and the list of references.
- Up to three pages of "Expertise and Resources - Not Anonymized" PDF is
requried through ARK as a separate upload when submitting the
anonymized Scientific/Technical/Management section.
Type-2 (SAP) Proposals
The laboratory/theoretical investigation portion of the XRISM
GO program, SAP will utilize a single stage proposal process. SAP
proposals may request support for a period of up to three years in
duration. Only US-based PIs are eligible.
Proposal submission is done via the
NASA NSPIRES on-line system. Hard-copy submission is not required. The following
elements are required:
- Proposal form (cover page & general form,) generated by, and submitted through, NSPIRES.
- Anonymized Scientific/Technical/Management section in PDF format,
not exceeding 10 pages, to be uploaded through NSPIRES.
Note that the page limit includes figures, and tables.
However, the list of references does not count against
the page limit.
- Up to two pages of open Science and Data Management plan (OSDMP),
immediately following the references and citations for the S/T/M
section. The OSDMP must address how any data or software will be made publicly available.
For more information see Section 1.1 of D.1
Astrophysics Research Program Overview.
- Type-2 Proposals must include a detailed budget and accompanying
narrative, providing a detailed description of how the requested funds
will be used to achieve the goals outlined in the proposal. An
anonymized fasion (e.g., PI; Co-I#1; Co-I#2) is included in the main
proposal document. See Section IV(b)iii of the ROSES-2023 Summary of
Solicitation and the walkthrough on ROSES budget redaction.
- "Expertise and Resources - Not Anonymized" PDF is
requried through NSPIRES as a separate upload when submitting the
anonymized Scientific/Technical/Management section. This document
should include:
- A list of all team members, their affiliations and roles (e.g.,
PI, Co-I, collaborator), and their contributions to the work;
- Brief descriptions of the scientific and technical expertise each team member brings, emphasizing the experiences
necessary to be successful in executing the proposed work.
- A description of the contribution that each team member
will make to the proposed investigation.
- A discussion of specific resources ("Facilities and
Equipment", e.g., access to a laboratory, observatory, specific instrumentation, etc.) that are required to perform the proposed investigation.
- The not-anonymized Table of Work Effort;
- Biographical Sketches/CVs for the PI and all Co-Is on the
proposal (limit 2 pages for the PI, 1 page for others);
- Statements of Current and Pending Support for the PI and all Co-Is;
- A discussion of any specific resources that are key to
completing the proposed work;
- Letters of commitment from any archives, specialized
facilities, foreign institutions, etc. that will support the proposed investigation.
- The total budget needs to be uploaded as a separate document in NSPIRES. Choose Attachment Type =
Total Budget. The mandatory total budget file is full and complete
with all costs for those at U.S. organizations, including those at government laboratories. It is not redacted or anonymized.
- An optional not-anonymized PDF high end computing (HEC) form can be submitted as attachment type "Optional HEC request" in NSPIRES. The S/T/M section in the main proposal must state that a HEC request is included and must provide an outline of the computing resources required in an anonymized fashion.
The following should not be
submitted as part of the Phase-1 proposal:
- The PI's institution's own cover page.
- Formatted electronic copies of the ARK/RPS form or the NSPIRES form.
- Hard copies of any of the above, including electronically
required elements.
Type-1 Phase-1 (Observing) - ARK/RPS
New XRISM PIs must first
create an ARK
account and/or join the XRISM RPS group.
Having done so,
the XRISM RPS form can be
accessed via
ARK/RPS.
We provide below selected key details for XRISM Cycle 1.
For further details, consult the
ARK/RPS help file.
- Cover Page
- Target of Opportunity (TOO) proposals for previously known
sources will be accepted in
response to this AO. Please look at the Notes on TOO
Proposals page for details.
- PIs can indicate on their proposal whether they wish their
proposed observation merged or not when the same target is
selected by multiple agencies. If merged, a single observation of
the target will be awarded to both proposing teams, a single,
Prime PI (PPI) will be designated, and the time will be accounted
for based on the Agency to which the PPI proposed the
observation. The PPI will assume the responsibility for planning
the observation, and both teams will have access to the processed
data. Alternatively, PIs have the option of indicating on their proposal that they do not wish their proposed observation merged. In such cases, if one or both of the accepted proposals are so marked, only one will be selected for observation. The priority given by the national reviews, as well as the lengths of the accepted observations, will be considered. The decision will be made by the International Merging Panel.
- General Form
- To facilitate checking for conflicts of interest during the peer review process, the co-I's institution must be chosen from the menu (thereby enforcing a uniform set of names). Please check the list of institutions and contact
the RPS team as soon as possible if your co-I's institution is not on this
list.
- Up to 20 co-investigators can be entered into the RPS
form. If you have more than 20 Co-Investigators, additional Co-Investigators can be specified in the team expertise PDF that you will need to upload after successful submission of your proposal forms. The team expertise PDF should always include your complete list of Co-Investigators regardless of how many you have.
The full list will be used by project personnel for
conflict checking. Under the Dual Anonymous Proposal Review Procedure
reviewers will not see any investigator names provided to ARK/RPS,
unless they assess them after ranking the proposals (see the DAPR
Guidelines). Please do not enter any investigator names in any ARK/RPS
comment fields.
- Target Form
- Time Constrained: A target is considered as "Time Constrained" if any of the following sections of the target form are marked as 'Yes':
- Roll angle dependent
- Monitoring Program
- Phase Dependent
- Date Constrained
- Coordinated with other ground- or space-based observatories
See the XRISM RPS help page for more information
about these fields.
Time-constrained observations must be designated Priority A.
- Proposers should include a summary of details that are
necessary for scheduling and observation planning (constraints,
observing mode) in the Remarks box for each
target.
- The minimum exposure for XRISM targets is 10 ks. For
Cycle 1, observations will be limited to
200 300 ks per pointing.
- Target of Opportunity (TOOs): The details are listed in the Notes on TOO Proposals
page.
After completing all fields for a proposal in ARK/RPS, use the
Verify button to confirm
that all required entries exist and conform to the expected format.
Forms that pass verification can then be submitted. ARK/RPS allows
PIs to continue to modify submitted proposals
until the deadline, so there is no penalty for submitting the proposal
form early.
The LaTeX, PostScript, and PDF buttons of
ARK/RPS can be used to generate formatted versions of the proposal forms.
Although it is often useful for the PIs to keep formatted copies of the forms
for the record, it is not a required part of the proposal submission process.
Type-2 (SAP) - NSPIRES
New NSPIRES users (including PIs and Co-Is) must first
create an NSPIRES
account.
Please refer to the
NSPRIES help page for how to link to proposers' institutions,
add Team Members, and enter budget information, etc.
- Format
- The anonymized Scientific/Technical/Management section for a
Type-1 Phase-1 Program must not exceed
4 Letter size (8.5" x 11")
pages. Page limits
include text, figures, tables, and references. The anonymized
Scientific/Technical/Management section for a Type-2 Program must not exceed
10 pages. The list of
references does not count against the page limit
.
- The anonymized Scientific/Technical/Management section can be
generated using the software of the PI's choice, as long
as it is converted to PDF format before submission. However, the font size and margings should meet the
proposal style format requirement described in the ROSES Summary of Solicitation.
Specifically, the text body font size should be no smaller than 15
characters per inch. A 12 point font size is recommended.
Please note that Phase-1 proposals should have a single-column
format. References should be in the [1], [2] format.
- Proposals must not contain hyperlinks to additional material other
than references to public information that do not identify the PI,
Co-Is or their institutions; web pages with material specific to the proposal such as target lists or stray light assessments are not allowed.
We suggest that proposers use the LaTeX template (Type-1,
and Type-2)
or the Word template (Type-1
and Type-2)
for the anonymized Scientific/Technical/Management section. When
using these templates, the user should double-check that the text area
is 6.5" x 9", having at least 1 inch top, botton, right
and left margins on US letter size paper (8.5" x 11").
- Content
- Type-1 Phase-1 (Observing)
- Proposals should include a description of the scientific
objectives; justify the choice of target(s); show that existing
data (previous X-ray observations or at other wavelengths)
are insufficient to achieve the objectives; justify the choice
of XRISM over other existing observatories (preferably
linked to some unique characteristic of XRISM);
and demonstrate the feasibility of the proposed observation
and analysis.
- Proposals for targets already observed by XRISM are
allowed, but must include a justification for an additional
observation, such as a much longer exposure, different pointing
position within an extended object, or different observing window for a
variable object. Observed XRISM
targets can be found using the
DARTS/XRISM at ISAS/JAXA.
- A list of approved targets for the Performance Verification
(PV) phase of the XRISM mission can be found on the
PV Targets
page.
The list of the calibration targets (candidates) are found at
the calibration target page.
- The length of the observation should be justified based on the
specific scientific objectives, preferably using simulations or
scaled from prior XRISM observations of a similar source.
However, the minimum XRISM observing time for a
target is set at 10 ksec. To maximize the breadth of scientific investigations
undertaken with XRISM during Cycle 1, observations
will be limited to
200 300 ks per pointing with the total not to
exceed 600 ks per proposal.
- Type-2 (SAP)
- Proposals should include a detailed description of the
proposed techniques and associated scientific/technical
justification.
- Proposals should be well defined and must address an atomic
physics issue expected to be encountered in a potential Resolve
observation. It can be a theoretical (e.g., calculation of atomic
cross sections or collision strengths) and/or an experimental
(e.g., EBIT measurements of particular ionization states)
investigation. Note that proposals with a more general
scientific relevance, i.e., in which the direct relevance of the
investigation is only partially/marginally applicable to the
interpretation of Resolve spectral data, are not solicited under
this Call. Such proposals should be submitted to
the Laboratory Astrophysics category of the Astrophysics Research
and Analysis (APRA) program element (Appendix D.3) of
ROSES-2016.
- Proposals should provide work plan, including a "Budget
Details" section and a "Budget Narrative"
section. Note that the budget justification and narrative do not count against
the page limit. Proposals may request support for
a period of up to three years in duration.
PIs are required to upload an up to three-page "Expertise and Resources - Not
Anonymized" document PDF through ARK as a separate upload when
submitting the anonymized Scientific/Technical/Management section for Type-1
Phase-1 proposals.
The LaTeX
template or the Word
template is available.
This document provides a list of all team members, their institutional
affiliations, roles, expertise, and contributions to the work. The
document should also discuss any specific resources that are key to
completing the proposed work.
For Type-2, please refer to the list of required elements described in
the proposal types, elements, and submission
section or the NRA.
This document will be distributed to the review panel after all proposals have been reviewed and rated, only for programs which are in the selectable range. This is to allow the reviewers to assess the team capabilities required to execute a given proposed science investigation.
If there are clear, compelling deficiencies in the expertise required
to see through the goals of the proposal, the panel may decide to flag
the submission accordingly, and provide a detailed justification in
its comments to NASA. This review may not be used to flag "up"
proposals for having strong team qualifications, nor may it be used to
re-evaluate or upgrade proposals.
US PIs whose Type-1 Phase-1 (observing) proposals are assigned a Priority A or B rating
by the International Merging meeting will be invited to submit a Phase-2 (cost) proposal.
Any questions regarding the XRISM GO program can be submitted to our XRISM helpdesk.
You can access our helpdesk by using HEASARC's Feedback form
, or click
the "HELP" icon to the left.
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