Download facilities

Institutional Facilities
Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI)
General Facility: The Space Telescope Science Institute is a ~500-person non-profit institution
operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy (AURA), whose
corporate headquarters are in Washington, DC. Founded in 1981, STScI’s primary function is to
perform science operations of the Hubble Space Telescope for NASA. STScI also has been
selected as the science operations center for the James Webb Space Telescope. STScI is located
on the Homewood campus of the Johns Hopkins University (JHU) in Baltimore, MD. The
Institute is situated primarily in the Steven Muller Building, where the principal investigator and
STScI co-investigators and collaborators all have offices along with approximately 100 other
PhD astronomers and scientists. Some staff are currently located in the JHU Bloomberg Center
for Physics and Astronomy.
Both the Muller and Bloomberg buildings have numerous conference rooms equipped
with telecon equipment, as well as several conference rooms equipped with video conferencing
equipment and webcasting facilities. Both buildings also have a large auditorium equipped with
computing infrastructure, projection equipment and video and audio equipment suitable for
reasonable sized conferences and symposia. The critical equipment to be used by STScI to
support the NAI project is the computing facilities.
Computer Facilities: STScI has a heterogeneous computing environment to support the diverse
needs of its missions, scientific research, and business functions. The network infrastructure is
currently a 155 Mbps backbone over ATM (asynchronous transfer mode), with 10/100 Mbps
Ethernet to servers and desktops. There are plans within the year to upgrade the backbone to
GigaBit Ethernet and to increase the number of 100 Mbps connections to the desktop. STScI is
connected to the Internet over a shared 100 Mbps connection through Goddard Space Flight
Center’s network. The Institute’s computing facilities span 3 locations: the main facility at 3700
San Martin Drive, and two remote locations. One location (on JHU campus, across the street) is
connected via fiber cable over the same ATM network backbone. The other remote location is
connected to the Institute’s network backbone via a DS-3 link.
STScI supports a variety of server systems for its diverse computing needs. The HST
operations and development servers include HP Alphas running both OpenVMS and Tru64
Unix, and Suns running Solaris. Data from HST and other missions is stored on MO (magnetooptical) jukeboxes and HST data is distributed on CDROM. Special-purpose hardware and
software is utilized for this function. The Institute is in process of implementing a SAN solution
from EMC for HST data pipeline and archive functions. Other data storage includes centralized
NAS devices, Sun/Solaris and PC/Windows file servers, and locally attached disk drives.
Science research and data analysis is run on a variety of platforms: servers are
predominantly Sun Solaris systems but desktop systems include Sun Solaris, PCs running Linux
or Windows, and Macs running Mac OS X. Our science network also features a beowulf cluster
with 31 dual CPU nodes, 32 gigabytes total memory, and almost 4 terabytes of disk space, all
connected by a gigabit ethernet network. The cluster is available for parallel scientific
computations such as simulations, data analysis, and visualizations using any of the standard
programming languages, parallelization tools, and astronomy data reduction packages. Our team
includes the builder/administrator of this beowulf cluster (with over 15 years of parallel
computing experience) along with several others well versed in large numerical calculations.
Business systems are supported by PC servers running Windows. Major business
applications include Deltek’s CostPoint, Peoplesoft, and Adaytum.
STScI supports a variety of database, web, and other server systems. There are 3 major
database management systems: Sybase, primarily in the operations environment, Oracle, and
Microsoft SQL Server. Sybase and Oracle servers operate on Sun Solaris servers; SQL Server
on Windows/PC servers. There are 10 Sybase, 4 Oracle, and 15 SQL servers. STScI supports a
variety of web applications run on Apache, IIS, and Tomcat servers. Many web services are in
process of migrating to the Linux platform. The Institute’s email service is provided by a central
server run on the Mirapoint email appliance.
The number and type of desktops supported at the Institute are: 300 Sun/Solaris systems,
400 PCs (including laptops) running Windows, 50 PCs running Linux, and 50 Mac OS X
systems.
Observational Facilities: STScI is a participant in the SMARTS consortium, which has taken
over the operational administration of the 0.9-metre, 1.0-metre and 1.5-metre telescopes at Cerro
Tololo Interamerican Observatory. STScI staff have access to wide-field optical and infrared
imaging instruments on all three telescopes, and to optical spectroscopy with the 1.5-metre.
Other Resources: STScI operates the Multimission Archive at STScI (MAST) supporting a
variety of astronomical data archives, with the primary focus on scientifically related data sets in
the optical, ultraviolet, and near-infrared parts of the spectrum. MAST is a component of
NASA's distributed Space Science Data Services (SSDS) and can be used for the compilation of
astrobiology related data. MAST also includes a number of tools for scientific data processing
and analysis.
Our facilities also include a scientific visualization laboratory for producing materials
suitable for the press, the public, educators and informal science institutions. Platforms for
creation of simulations, models and artists rendering of scientific phenomena include PC
systems, Apple systems and Silicon Graphics workstations. The Beowulf cluster is occasionally
used for this purpose as well. We have a full graphics capability and host a public website that
rivals top science/technical sites.
Center of Marine Biotechnology (COMB)
COMB is internationally recognized for basic science as well as practical applications of
marine biotechnology discoveries. COMB occupies 67% of the Columbus Center (127,000 sq ft)
centrally located in Baltimore's Inner Harbor. COMB houses a research staff with 17 tenured and
tenure-track faculty, a total of 160 people and instrumentation to facilitate research. Facilities
include 334 rooms, 60 laboratories (40 faculty labs and 20 specialty or common equipment labs),
a 3000 square foot library, 58 fume hoods, 22 cold rooms, and 2 Biological Safety Level Three
suites. COMB maintains nearby shared equipment rooms (microscopes, ultracentrifuges,
scintillation counters, autoclave, etc.), computer laboratory, and reading room.
PI Laboratories: Six COMB lab modules (900 sq. ft. each with space for 5 researchers) located
on the fifth floor and three additional lab modules on the fourth floor are available for this work
(seven PI laboratory modules and two modules for the proposed EATT workshop:
Extremophiles in Astrobiology: Theory and Techniques), totaling over 8,000 sq. ft. The labs
incorporate state-of-the-art design for modern microbial biology, including aerobic and
anaerobic microbiology, genomics, bioinformatics, proteomics and biotechnological
investigations.
Anaerobic Microbiology Laboratories: The laboratories are equipped with essentially most of
the equipment required to perform the proposed work including: 3 Coy anaerobic glove boxes
(one refrigerated with FPLC for anaerobic protein separations), anaerobic gassing manifold,
apparatus for preparing anaerobic media, stationary and shaking incubators, gas chromatographs,
spectrophotometers, high-speed and bench-top centrifuges, water baths, vacuum manifolds &
filtering devices, rotary vacuum evaporator, gel drier, electrophoresis equipment, hybridization
oven, Olympus BH-2 phase/fluorescence microscope with assorted filter blocks, BioRad GelDoc
2000 digital imaging system and MJ Research Peltier 96-well thermocycler.
Extremophile Scale-Up Facility: Located adjacent to the PI’s laboratories on the 5th floor of
the Columbus Center, houses two 5-liter, two 20-liter and one 250-liter fermentors that are
capable of growing strict anaerobes at temperatures of up to 105 OC. One 20-liter fermentor is
capable of maintaining constant growth temperatures as low as –5 OC. Both 5- and 20-liter
fermentors can be configured for use as chemostats. Fermentors are centrally monitored and
controlled with Biocommand software. Control parameters include temperature, redox, oxygen,
pH, antifoam, nutrient addition, OD and anaerobic gas flow. CEPA continuous centrifuges (0.5
and 2 liter capacity) equipped with chillers are available for harvesting cell material.
BioAnalytical Services Lab (BASlab): Located on the 3rd floor of COMB: equipped with
Beckman 1000 and 1000M oligonucleotide synthesizers, ABI 3100 and ABI 310 capillary DNA
sequencer with sequencing & GeneScan software, Molecular Dynamics 573 fluoroimager, Storm
phosphoimager and ABI Prism 7700/TaqMan real-time monitoring thermocycler.
Analytical Facility: Located on the 4th floor of COMB: equipped with HP5890 FI, TCD and
ECD capillary GCs and an HP 6990 GC/MS with control and analytical PC workstations,
Coulter counter with associated control and analytical PC workstation.
Microscopy Facilities: Located on the fourth and fifth floors house a Bio-Rad Radiance 2100
AGR-3Q Laser Scanning Confocal Microscope with Argon, Green He/Ne and Red Diode Lasers,
an Olympus BX60 upright microscope with fluorescence and phase contrast objectives and an
Olympus IX70 inverted microscope with fluorescence, phase contrast, and Nomarski objectives.
Image collection and analysis is done through either a Photometerics Quantix 1400 low-light,
high resolution digital camera and Scanalytics IPLAB imaging software, a Canon Allura digital
video camera, an analog video camera and Gyyr timelapse VHS video recorder, or 35 mm
photography.
Microarray Core Facility: The UMBI DNA Microarray Core Facility occupies a new 1,000 sq.
ft. laboratory in the Center for Biosystems Research in College Park. This facility has the
equipment needed to produce and hybridize spotted arrays including a Affymetrix 417 Arrayer
and 418 Scanner, and the equipment needed to hybridize Affymetrix GeneChips including the
Affymetrix Fluidics Station 400, Workstation System, Hybridization oven, and Agilent
Technologies GeneArray Scanner.
Proteomics Core Facility: The University of Maryland-Baltimore Proteomics Core Facility
includes a Kratos Axima MALDI time-of-flight spectrometer with an x,y stage, curved field
reflectron and mass correlated acceleration; ProteomeSystems 2-D gel electrophoresis and
blotting equipment; a Shimadzu Xcise integrated robot to cut out, digest and prepare spots from
the gel for mass spectrometry analysis. Also coordinated with this platform is a Finnigan LCQ
ProteomeX ion trap mass spectrometer interfaced via electrospray to a two dimensional HPLC
system, and offering tandem mass spectrometry capability and TurboSEQUEST software for
bioinformatics. The facility also makes available Compugen Z3 software for analysis of gel
arrays; an Amersham AKTA FLPC and a Biotraces MPD high sensitivity radioactivity scanner.
Computer Facilities: Teleconferencing facilities through the University of Maryland's
Interactive Video Network (IVN). Bioinformatics needs are met by three SGI servers: an
Origin3200 (16GB RAM), SGI Octane (2 GB RAM) and O2 IRIX workstation (512 MB RAM)
running full array of bioinformatics software. PI labs over a dozen networked Pentium PCs/Mac
G4 computers.
Princeton University
Princeton University High-Contrast Imaging Lab
General Facility: The High-Contrast Imaging Lab is a 900 sq ft laboratory housed in the
Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at Princeton University. The lab was
created four years ago to investigate techniques for high-contrast imaging as defined by the
Terrestrial Planet Finder space telescope. There are several faculty affiliated with the lab. They
come from Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Operations Research and Financial
Engineering, and Astrophysics. Each faculty member has a private office equipped with highspeed internet access. There are also postdocs and graduate students affiliated with the lab. The
university provides office space and computational resources for all postdocs and graduate
students.
Figure F.1: The Princeton Coronagraph Optics Laboratory and the optical bench showing the
shaped pupil mask under test.
Lab Facilities: The laboratory comprises two rooms that function as a pre-entry security area
and high contrast imaging dark Lab. Two optical tables are assembled in tandem to create a
continuous surface optical test bed 4 ft wide by 16 ft long with a vibration isolation suspension
system. Above the table array is a bank of HEPA filters to create a clean envelope working area.
Our coronagraph system consists of /20 optics and is protected by a specially designed
enclosure to eliminate 1) thermal convection, 2) air turbulence, 3) particulate contamination, and
4) stray light. Figure F.1 shows a photograph of the laboratory and optics table.
The optical system consists of a laser source feeding a single mode fiber. This fiber
illuminates a 15 cm off-axis parabolic mirror to collimate the beam. After a fold mirror (which
will soon be replaced by deformable mirrors), the beam passes through the 2.5 cm shaped pupil.
It is focused onto the camera by a second 15 cm off-axis parabola. Images are taken with a 752
x 580 black and white cooled CCD camera. A major improvement in the coming months will be
the installation of two Boston Micromachines Deformable Mirrors (DMs) to allow wavefront
control.
In the near future we will implement a pulsed laser source to simulate a hot star as a
white light point source with the coronagraph. To do this, we have in the lab a Ti:Sapphire
pulsed laser, tunable range 695 nm-950 nm (800 nm peak) which is capable of making a 1
micron hot spot on a metal surface to emulate the spectrum of a star. This will allow us to do
polychromatic imaging with the lab coronagraph and better understand the wide band
performance.
Next to our lab building is The Princeton Institute for the Science and Technology of
Materials (PRISM). This facility can measure and analyze materials of many types and
complexity, greatly enhancing our ability to choose a process or materials for mask development
and manufacturing.
Observatories:
The Subaru 8.2-meter telescope at Mauna Kea in Hawaii and its general purpose
instrumentation, especially the High Dispersion Spectrograph (HDS), operated by the National
Astronomical Observatory of Japan (NAOJ), are described at http://www.naoj.org/ and are
available to the team via competitive, peer-reviewed observing proposals which are typical
submitted in collaboration with colleagues at the University of Tokyo and or NAOJ.
The Apache Point Observatory 3.5-meter telescope and its general purpose
instrumentation, especially the APO-Echelle high resolution spectrograph, operated by the
Astrophysical Research Consortium (ARC), are described at http://www.apo.nmsu.edu/ and are
readily available to the team via the Princeton Astrophsics Department’s 15.625% (5/32) share of
the consortium operated facility. Compared to other telescopes of its class the APO 3.5-meter is
unusual in that it is routinely operated remotely over the internet (typically over 70% of the
time), normally scheduled for partial night observing programs, capable of changing instruments
very quickly (5-15 minutes) with little or no advanced noticed and often re-scheduled on short
notice to enable observation of targets-of-opportunity and transient celestial phenomena. As
such it is ideally suited to the synoptic applications proposed here. CoI Turner is the former
Director and is thus very familiar with the capabilities and use of this somewhat unconventional
observatory.