All such questions should be addressed to the HEASARC Help Desk, where you should select "XRISM" as the mailing list.

Proposals

Anonymous Proposals

Archive and Documentation

A: All such questions should be addressed to the HEASARC Help Desk, where you should select "XRISM" as the mailing list.

A: For specific objects, you can search the XRISMMASTR catalog through the HEASARC Xamin or the Browse interface. This catalog contains a list of all objects that have been observed with XRISM or approved to be observed.

Alternatively, you can consult the list of calibration, Performance Verification (PV), and AO1 targets, as well as the XRISM Observation Log. The Observation Log contains all observations that have been processed. These lists are useful particularly if you are interested in a category of objects.

A: These may be commissioning targets or real-time TOO targets.

The former are celestial X-ray sources that were used for the purpose of satellite and/or instrument commissioning, and have observation IDs that start with a 0. The exposure times were determined by what was needed for commissioning, and the instruments may or may not be operated in the normal mode. Therefore, commissioning data may or may not be suitable for scientific use. The specific settings used for individual commissioning observations can be provided upon request.

The latter are observations requested by the community outside the normal proposal process in response to unpredictable astrophysical events, and have observation IDs that start with a 9. By their very nature, these real-time TOO observations are likely to have captured transient states of these objects.

A: There are three parallel solicitations, depending on the institution with which the principal investigator (PI) is affiliated.

PIs located in the US or Canada should respond to the NASA opportunity.

PIs located in ESA member countries and cooperating states should respond to the ESA call for proposals,

PIs located in Japan or all other countries should respond to the Japanese call for proposals,

Please also consult the XRISM Proposers' Observatory Guide (the HTML version or the PDF version), which contains further details of the proposal process, as well as the technical capabilities of the Resolve and Xtend instruments on-board XRISM.

A: Cycle 2 observations are expected to start on or about November 1, 2025, and last for a period of approximately 6 months, ending on or about May 1, 2026.

A: Since there is some uncertainty in the exact start and end dates of the Cycle 2 period, proposals asking for time-critical observations in May 2026 (but not June 2026 and beyond) are allowed and will be considered in Cycle 2.

A: No. The Cycle 2 solitation is exclusively for the gate-valve closed configuration of XRISM/Resolve.

A: Yes, if, in the opinion of the reviewers, partial acceptance makes sense.

If this is also acceptable in the opinion of the propsing team, we recommend that the targets be listed in the order of priority.

A. Yes, and there are two ways to request them. TOO observations of unpredictable events in known targets can be requested through the regular proposal process. However, generic TOO proposals - for unpredictable events in a class of objects, whose identities are not known in advance (e.g., outburst of a hitherto unknown X-ray transient) - are not solicited in Cycle 2. In addition, TOO targets cannot be mixed with non-TOO targets within a single proposal.

In addition, it will be possible to submit a real-time request for TOO observations, once an unpredictable event is detected. During the PV phase, this opportunity is open only to the XRISM team members; in the GO phase of the mission, a mechanism to submit real-time TOO and other drector's discretionary time (DDT) observation will be opened to the community at large,

Once triggered, the anticipated response time for TOO observation is 48 to 72 hours.

See notes on TOO proposals for more.

A. For the purpose of time allocation, we use probability-weighted exposure times for TOO proposals, the estimate for which must be provided by the proposers (the basis for the estimate should be provided in the proposal text). For XRISM, we request the proposal-wide probability-weighted exposure time on the general form. Also, the general form should indicate the estimated probability that at least some of the proposed observations can be triggered. See notes on TOO proposals for more. In addition, the triggering criterion must be explicitly specified. This can be done in the Remarks boxes either individually in the target forms or collectively in the general form.

A: No. POG Section 2.1 states "The overall observing efficiency of the satellite is expected to be about 45%. Proposals should specify the desired good on-source exposure but without accounting for instrumental dead times due to high count rates, if relevant." Please also take a look at the ARK help for XRISM RPS forms of the Total Observation Time entry.

A: The NASA solicitation of XRISM observing time will be evaluated through dual-anonymous peer review. This means that proposals should eliminate language that identifies the proposers or institution. For more information see the Guide to XRISM Proposers and in particular the Guidelines for Anonymous Proposals.

A: PIs are required to provide an non-anonymized "Expertise and Resources" PDF file (typically one page, up to 3 pages are allowed), as a second upload (after the anonymized scientific justifcation) through ARK. A LaTeX template and a Word template are available.

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 change the rating of the proposals.

A: References to published work are encouraged, including work citable by a Digital Object Identifier (DOI).

Unpublished work that is based on public data sets or public software can be referenced as work "by the proposal team," without identifying the PI or Co-Is by name.

It may be necessary to cite exclusive access datasets or non-public software that may reveal (or strongly imply) the investigators on the proposal. It is suggested proposers use language such as "obtained in private communication" or "from private consultation" when referring to such potentially revealing work, again without identifying anyone by name.

A: The bulk of the PV data will be made public one year after the conclusion of the PV phase of the mission, i.e., August 31, 2025.

A: The first light observation of LMC N132D, as well as real-time TOO observations performed during the AO1 period (V4641 Sgr and MAXI J1744-294) are publicly available.

Additional Early Release data for several observations are also publicly available. They include X-ray images or spectra obtained and reduced during the commissioning or calibration operations of the Resolve and Xtend instruments aboard XRISM. While the calibration applied to these data products is advanced enough to demonstrate the data quality, reliable scientific results cannot be derived from these data products.