Objective
The Atacama Large Millimeter Array, ALMA, was originally a joint European-North American project. ALMA will produce high quality interferometer images with angular resolutions finer than 1 arc-second in the millimeter/sub-mm wavelength range. The ALMA project has been approved by the ESO Council and the U.S. National Science Foundation with total funding of 815 million USD (year 2000). In the year 2006 the ALMA Collaboration was extended, now including astronomers from East Asia who are supported by the Japanese National Institutes of Natural Sciences at a level of more than 200 million USD (year 2006).
The building of ALMA infrastructure in north Chile began in 2003. Operation of the fully equipped ALMA Observatory is expected for 2013. There will be an 'Early Science' phase of the ALMA Observatory, now planned to start in the year 2011. Early Science will include scientific synergies with Herschel, an ESA Cornerstone mission, which was launched on 14 May 2009. One of Herschel's main programs will be the measurement of water vapour spectral lines. Water is an important constituent of star forming regions and comets, so measuring the best and most complete data set of water lines is crucial. This ALMA Enhancement Programme will enable European astronomers to build added-value hardware and software components for ALMA that allow access to higher fidelity images and measurements of the water lines at high resolution.
Fields of science
Call for proposal
FP6-2003-INFRASTRUCTURES-4
See other projects for this call
Funding Scheme
CNI-SSA - Construction of new infrastructures implemented as Specific Support ActionsCoordinator
GARCHING
Germany