All U.S. astronomers will gain competitive access to the twin 10-meter
Keck telescopes starting early next year via an innovative new
National Science Foundation program administered by the National
Optical Astronomy Observatory (NOAO).

Known as the Telescope System Instrumentation Program (TSIP), this
new initiative will strengthen the relationship between publicly funded
telescopes, like those operated by NOAO, and privately funded telescopes
at independent observatories, which are operated by universities and
other consortia.

Using a competitive process on both ends of the deal, TSIP offers
funding from the NSF to develop cutting-edge astronomical instrumentation
for ground-based telescopes with apertures of six meters or larger.
In return, the private observatory must provide a proportional amount
of observing time on the telescope, which is then made available to
the entire U.S. community via the regular, proposal-based NOAO
time allocation process.

In the first two awards under the TSIP program, the privately operated
W.M. Keck Observatory will receive $3.89 million for two advanced
astronomical instrumentation proposals. The TSIP formula requires
telescope-observing time equal in value to one-half the instrumentation
funding. Therefore, Keck will provide 41 total nights on one of the
two Keck telescopes, with a night of observing on the world’s largest
ground-based optical/infrared telescopes valued at $47,400.

The NSF funds will support the fabrication of an integral field spectro-
graph for the Keck II telescope called OSIRIS, at a cost of $2.75 million,
plus one year of the preliminary design effort for an advanced near-infrared
imager and multi-object spectrograph for Keck II named KIRMOS, at a cost
of $1.14 million.

“The TSIP program is an extraordinary opportunity to add essential instruments
to the Keck telescopes that will dramatically increase our understanding of
the cosmos within ten years,” said Frederic Chaffee, director of the W.M. Keck
Observatory. “The National Science Foundation and the Keck Observatory make
a natural team for astronomical science in the United States, and we are very
pleased to share in this program.”

TSIP was the highest-priority moderate initiative of the McKee-Taylor
Decadal Survey of astronomy, published in 2000 as the latest installment in
a continuing series of long-term studies by the National Research Council
intended to prioritize the subsequent decade of astronomy.

“One of the key themes of the Decadal Survey was the need for an improved
U.S. ‘system’ of public-private observatories, both to give increased
coherence to the progress of research and to provide state-of-the-art
capabilities to the entire astronomical community,” said Alan Dressler
of the Carnegie Observatories in Pasadena, CA, chairman of the survey’s
subcommittee on ground-based optical/infrared astronomy. “It is very
encouraging to see TSIP take flight.”

“If we do it right, TSIP will provide new, scientifically important
capabilities to all U.S. astronomers, and it will strengthen the increasingly
important public-private partnership in astronomical research by recognizing
and rewarding the huge investment made by independent observatories in
building the current generation of large telescopes,” said NOAO Deputy
Director Todd Boroson.

The first competitive solicitation for TSIP proposals was issued in
December 2001. Twelve of the 41 nights at the W.M. Keck Observatory will be
awarded during the next NOAO time allocation process, which provides observing
time at national optical/infrared telescope facilities for the period from
February-July 2003.

Each of the twin Keck telescopes on the 13,800-foot summit of Mauna Kea,
Hawaii, stands eight stories tall and weighs 300 tons. At the heart of each
Keck telescope is a revolutionary primary mirror composed of 36 hexagonal
segments that work in concert as a single piece of reflective glass. Made
possible through grants from the W.M. Keck Foundation, the observatory is
operated by the California Association for Research in Astronomy, a
scientific partnership of the California Institute of Technology, the
University of California, and the National Aeronautics and Space
Administration (NASA).

The National Optical Astronomy Observatory (NOAO) is operated by the
Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy (AURA), Inc., under
a cooperative agreement with the National Science Foundation. NOAO operates
telescopes at Kitt Peak National Observatory near Tucson, AZ, and Cerro Tololo
Inter-American Observatory near La Serena, Chile, and it is the U.S. partner
in the International Gemini Observatory.

Douglas Isbell
Public Information Officer
National Optical Astronomy Observatory
Phone: 520/318-8214
E-mail: disbell@noao.edu

Laura Kraft
Public Information Officer
W.M. Keck Observatory
Phone: 808/885-7887
E-mail: lkraft@keck.hawaii.edu