[S-MODE] S-MODE update

[J. Tom Farrar]

Dear all,

I hope you are all doing well personally and professionally during this 
stressful time.

I am writing to provide an update on S-MODE.  Thank you all for your 
input on rescheduling the pilot campaign.  Late October looks like a 
great time to have the campaign, both scientifically and logistically, 
and it seems it will be possible to reschedule everything.  Another 
piece of good news is that the delay will allow us to include the PRISM 
hyperspectral imager in the pilot campaign on the NASA Gulfstream III.   
Overall, the delay should have no negative impact on our ability to 
achieve our goals.

Although there is still a lot of uncertainty about the schedule (and 
lots of other things), here is the notional schedule:
(1) NAVO glider deployments, 9/15/2020.
(2) Begin flights and activities at Ames operations center, 10/16/2020.
(3) Mobilze Oceanus cruise in San Francisco, 10/20/2020-10/22/2020.
(4) Oceanus cruise (San Francisco to Newport), 10/23/2020-11/7/2020.
(5) End flights and activities at Ames operations center, 11/6/2020.
(6) Delay the two main campaigns to Fall 2021 and Spring 2022.
We will plan to re-evaluate and make a go/no-go decision by September 
1.  If the uncertainty in the schedule is not resolved or if we have not 
been able to resume preparations by that time, we will need to consider 
delaying again to April 2021.

For the time being, we will suspend the weekly planning telecons. 
However, to counterbalance all of the logistics discussions we had this 
winter, I would like to start having monthly Science Team telecons with 
two science presentations of 15-30 minutes.  Please let me know if you 
would like to give a presentation.  (Ocean Sciences talks would be 
perfect.)


Thank you,
Tom

-- 
J. Thomas Farrar
https://www2.whoi.edu/staff/jfarrar/
Associate Scientist
Department of Physical Oceanography
Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution

+1 (508)289-2691

Mail Stop #29
Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
Woods Hole, MA 02543 USA