Present: Ludo, Erminia, Francesco, Eiichiro, Matt, Pete
Apologies: Hans Kristian, Enrique, Jon
Agenda:
- Choose a notetaker for the day
- Approval of minutes of last telecons
- News from agencies, including clarification of participation under ESA “umbrella” (or not)
- New members
- Meeting in Tenerife, week of April 4th
- AOB
Note taker: Paolo
Previous meetings: 11/1 approved. 18/1 TBA next time.
Gao proposes to remain dormant. Potential issues with quorum, voting rights. Is he leaving LB? Ludo to talk to Gao and to investigate what exactly he has in mind.
Agency news.
All SC members to check with their agencies to check about what level of ESA participation is required in order for them to Join LB
France CNES position is clear: No need to have ESA
UKSA needs LB to be a ESA Core Program to join. A small ESA MoO (e.g. to pay part of the service module) won’t do. Alternative is a bilateral (e.g. with CNES). But these are three year program, with competitive calls and dependent on funding. Path is unclear. In adition, bilateral with CNES will cover only a MHFT. Other bilateral agreements will be needed to contribute to LFT, SGS and so. Carolyne Harper wants to check with Fabio Favata to see what he has in mind.
Italy: ASI could in principle enter without ESA. But this is not the preferred situation. ASI was expecting ESA to call for a wide MoO inside which CNES would be leading the MHFT. LiteBIRD is wider than MHFT. A participation, e.g. to SGS would be ill-defined without an ESA umbrella. Barbara will talk to Fabio to understand what ESA wants to do.
Matt: not clear how CNES will be leading under ESA leadership. They want to lead what they are responsible for. Thierry: true for MHFT but no intention from CNES to lead the wider EU collaboration. Thierry: even for MHFT MLA will be needed in phase B.
Sweden, Norway had to confirm with their agencies whether their assumption (“ESA logo on S/C is enough”) is indeed true. Not on call today.
Interaction with Martin Linder. We do not want to tell Martin that the European Consortium does not need anything from ESA. Ludo to contact him and clarify that we need to wait to clarify the situation with Fabio before asking for a wish list.
What is the status of the TRP on optics? Time is ripe to unlock it. Ludo to check with Martin
ESA M call for LiteBIRD. In principle possible to present contributions to partner agency led mission. But participating from LiteBIRD requires building a different program than our own. Have to decide what we could propose. Need to clarify with ESA. Ludo proposes to start with Martin Linder.
New members: all approved.
Paolo will send to Membership Board:
For France: Louise Mousset, Arianna Rizzieri, Baptiste Jost, Abdallah Chahadih
For Italy: Thejs Brinckmann, Marco Bortolami, Niccolò Raffuzzi
For Greece: Kostantinos Tassis, Vasiliki Pavidlou, Dmitry Blinov
Meeting in tenerife, April 4 -> 7. Ludo to send draft announcement