ORP delivered Transnational Access and/or Virtual Access (TA/VA) to Europe’s most competitive radio and optical infrastructures to all qualified users on science merit.
Over the full project duration, calls for TA to the ORP world-class radio astronomy arrays and single-dish facilities exceeded contractual obligations, with most infrastructures issuing two calls per year. In total, 315 TA projects were supported, providing more than 8,400 access hours to 1,960 users. Forty percent of these projects were led by female Principal Investigators. Many infrastructures provided access beyond the agreed levels, consistent with the open skies policy. Additionally, ORP provided global virtual access to the data archives of the upgraded Westerbork Synthesis Radio Telescope (ALTA) and the international LOFAR facility (LTA). The main user interest has been in the fully processed science level data, and primarily in the multi-frequency synthesis beam images. Improvement has been made for the virtual access, some 2 million files have been added to the LOFAR archive and the total volume increased by ca 4,9 PB. Two Apertif data collections have been released during the reporting period: the first-time domain data collection, including the data from the 2019 observing campaign that resulted in the detection of 5 Fast Radio Bursts; and a small data release of a 26.5 square degrees image of the Boötes constellation.
In the optical domain, ORP Time Domain Astronomy (TDA) provided virtual access (WP18) to a rapidly growing network of telescopes distributed worldwide, operating as a network using the BHTOM system developed for this project. Over 10000 observations were obtained and processed each week, and processed to science-ready with 99% reliability. The (virtual access) telescope network has been expanded bringing the total to more than 100 facilities. The optical Common Time Allocation Committee (CTAC) process continued with great success. There were open Calls each semester, with the number of projects approved determined on science merit by independent review until the semester budget (uniform per semester throughout ORP) was exhausted. Given the order of magnitude range in unit costs between the infrastructures the number of projects is not a robust measure, however over 400 proposed projects were submitted, with over 170 supported. 379 nights of telescope access over 12 different infrastructures supported 1617 users. Oversubscription remained about a factor of 2.5-4.
Access support systems included ongoing assistance for users of the ALMA infrastructure via a network of regional support centres. Over the project duration, 55 ALMA projects involving 745 users were supported, with 54% of these projects led by female Principal Investigators. The new support centres network for Very Large Telescope Interferometer (VLTI) users (in the UK, France, Hungary, Netherlands, Portugal and Belgium), supported and trained the growing VLTI community of users. Preparatory developments for VLTI hands-on instrument support and virtual access to adaptive optics control system data have been put in place, supporting very significant enhancements in VLTI scientific capability and user science opportunities.
The ORP training program successfully equipped hundreds of young researchers and engineers with hands-on and virtual skills across optical/infrared and radio astronomy. Flagship schools such as NEON and ERIS, alongside new initiatives in proposal writing, instrumentation, and multi-messenger astrophysics, achieved excellent feedback.
