Design and Development Plan for the Frequency Agile Solar Radiotelescope (FASR)

The Frequency Agile Solar Radiotelescope (FASR) will be a solar-dedicated, ground-based radio array designed to perform broadband imaging spectroscopy with a frequency bandwidth and the time resolution, spectral resolution, and angular resolution required to exploit fully the diagnostic information embodied in radio emission from the Sun. In particular, the FASR will provide a number of unique and innovative radio-diagnostic tools for probing solar and space weather phenomena. These will enable scientists to attack outstanding problems in solar, heliospheric, and space weather physics.

The objective of this award is to produce a FASR Design and Development Plan (DDP) that details the design and planning activities that must occur prior to the construction and operation of the instrument. In particular, the investigators on this award will carry out detailed planning for the FASR Project in five key areas: 1) Instrument development; 2) Software and data management; 3) Science operations; 4) Project organization and management; and 5) Education and public outreach. A large experienced team has been assembled to carry out this planning effort, including personnel at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory, the University of Michigan, the New Jersey Institute of Technology, the University of California at Berkeley, and the University of Maryland. Additional participants include the California Institute of Technology's Owens Valley Radio Observatory and Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the Naval Research Laboratory, the University of New Mexico, the University of Applied Science in Switzerland, and the Paris Observatory.

The first phase of this effort will be to evaluate the level of effort required to operate and maintain the FASR. While the FASR does not require enabling technologies, it represents a challenging systems engineering problem that must meet demanding scientific requirements at reasonable cost. It also represents a software systems and data management challenge. The FASR will play a transformative role in solar radio physics, bringing a wide range of innovative and unique observational tools to bear on outstanding problems in solar and heliospheric physics for the first time. It is anticipated to serve as the world's premier solar radio physics facility for several decades.