Program News and Announcements

15 June 2023

ROSES-23: NICER General Observer Amendment

The Neutron Star Interior Composition Explorer (NICER) is an X-ray experiment on the International Space Station (ISS) dedicated to high-resolution timing and spectroscopy of neutron stars and other rapidly variable X-ray sources in the 0.2–12 keV band. Cycle 6 of the NICER General Observer (NICER GO) program solicits proposals for observations with NICER addressing all areas of astrophysics, with at least 7.5 Ms of available time and a limited amount of funding available.

ROSES-2023 Amendment 29 announces a number of changes to NICER GO:

1. An on-orbit event in late May altered the performance of NICER’s X-ray Timing Instrument under certain conditions, chiefly in its low-energy X-ray response during orbit day. At the time of the release of this Amendment, the impacts of this change on Cycle 6 General Observer program observations have not yet been fully assessed and proposers should consult the NICER mission homepage for updates. Proposers are advised to bear in mind that orbit-night time is likely to be heavily oversubscribed and that seasonal scheduling restrictions (similar to the Sun angle constraints described in Table D.11-1) may be imposed on investigations requiring sensitivity to X-ray energies below approximately 600 eV.
2. The four-page limit for the Scientific/Technical/Management section of proposals includes figures but not references (see Section 2.2.1).
3. Information on high-end computing (HEC) support has been added to Sections 2.1, 2.2.1, and 2.2.5.
4. Other small clarifications, corrections, and additions have been made throughout. New text is in bold and deleted text is struck through.

The Phase-1 proposal due date remains unchanged at 4:30p Eastern/1:30p Pacific on 14 September 2023 via the Astrophysics Research Knowledgebase Remote Proposal System (ARK/RPS).

Please direct programmatic questions to the NICER Program Officer, Roopesh Ojha, via Roopesh.Ojha@nasa.gov and technical questions to Keith Gendreau, NICER PI, at Keith.C.Gendreau@nasa.gov