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Guide to the XRISM Cycle 2 Program for US- and Canadian-based Proposers

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1. Overview

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 2.8 Ms of time will be available in the observing period running approximately from November 1, 2025 - May 1, 2026. It is anticipated that up to $3.25M 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.

2. Deadline

Proposals are due no later than May 15, (Thursday), 2025.

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. What's New in Cycle 2

• The duration of Cycle 2 has been reduced to six months to accommodate a potential gate valve opening attempt. The observing period runs approximately from November 1, 2025 - May 1, 2026.
• The list of references does not count against the page limit. References do not count against the 4 page limit for Type-1 and the 10 page limit for Type-2 proposals.
• Reminder: There are no Joint Programs in XRISM Cycle 2. No other observatory joint time is arranged during the XRISM Cycle 2, and no XRISM joint time is allocated for other observatories' Call for Proposals.

4. 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.

5. Proposal Types, Elements and Submission Method

Additional details concerning Cycle 2 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, B or C 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:

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:

The following should not be submitted as part of the Phase-1 proposal:

6. Selected Key Details of the Proposal Form

Type-1 Phase-1 (Observing) - ARK/RPS

New XRISM PIs must first create an ARK account and/or join the XRISM RPS group. This also applies to PIs who submitted their Cycle 1 XRISM proposals to JAXA or ESA but have moved to a US or Canadian institution since then. Having done so, the XRISM RPS form can be accessed via ARK/RPS.

We provide below selected key details for XRISM Cycle 2. 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 2, observations will be limited to 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.

7. Anonymized Scientific/Technical/Management Section

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 and tables. 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 and/or approved XRISM targets can be found using the HEASARC/Browse XRISMMASTR table or by the DARTS/XRISM at ISAS/JAXA.
• A list of approved XRISM Generic ToO programs can be found at the JAXA XRISM Generic ToO Operation 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 2, observations will be limited to 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.

8. Expertise and Resources - Not Anonymized Document

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.

9. Budget Proposals for Observing Programs: Type-1 Phase-2 Proposals

US PIs whose Type-1 Phase-1 (observing) proposals are assigned a Priority A, B or C rating by the International Merging meeting will be invited to submit a Phase-2 (cost) proposal.

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