22 July 2024
The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope team is requesting self-nominations, due on 12 August 2024, for membership on the Roman Observations Time Allocation Committee (ROTAC).
The primary goal of Roman is to maximize the scientific return from wide field near-infrared (WFI) surveys. Roman's WFI observing program will include both Core Community Surveys and General Astrophysics Surveys (for which a minimum of 25% of Roman’s observing time will be reserved in the first five years), defined by a community-led process and traditional peer-reviewed calls for proposals. The majority of observing time during Roman’s primary 5-year mission will be devoted to community-defined surveys. It is the task of the Roman Observations Time Allocation Committee to review the survey implementation options recommended by the committees tasked with defining Roman’s community-defined surveys, and to advise the Roman Project at NASA GSFC on which of the implementation options for each survey should be adopted. This committee will be charged with considering the balance between community-defined surveys and Principal Investigator (PI)-led General Astrophysics Surveys.
Roman’s community-defined surveys include Roman’s Core Community Surveys as well as an Early Definition General Astrophysics Survey of the Galactic Plane. Roman’s Core Community Surveys will include a High Latitude Wide Area survey, a High Latitude Time Domain survey, and a Galactic Bulge Time Domain survey. All Roman’s community-defined surveys will enable a wide range of general astrophysical investigations.
The ROTAC will be composed of members representing both the breadth and diversity of science to be enabled with the surveys, and that of the scientists who will use Roman through the community-defined surveys and the PI-led General Astrophysics Surveys. The ROTAC will be formed by late summer 2024 and is expected to be active for approximately one year.
This call for self-nominations is the first step in forming the ROTAC. The full committee membership will be drawn from various sources, including but not limited to self-nominations.
For full details and context on this call for self-nominations, as well as submission instructions, please visit the ROTAC webpage.
For specific questions related to a submission, please email roman-help@bigbang.gsfc.nasa.gov with the subject line: “Roman ROTAC self-nomination.”