A big thank you to all the attendees at our Workshop. Exciting to see so much community interest in the mission! Plenary presentations have now been posted (see agenda below). One of the Workshop objectives was to motivate and organize contributions to the PRIMA General Observer Science Book that we plan to publish in the fall. Contributers should use the Word template below as a guide to content. The deadline for contributions is April 28 (extended from April 21).

We are pleased to announce the Second PRIMA Community Workshop, on Tuesday-Wednesday, March 21-22, 2023, 11am-3pm Eastern Time, 16-20h CET.

PRIMA is a concept for a space telescope mission in the far-IR (25-260 µm), to be submitted later this year to the NASA Announcement of Opportunity for an Astrophysics Probe Explorer (APEX) mission. We welcome all astronomers interested in science enabled by far infrared observations to participate. Participation will be all virtual, via Zoom. Please register at the link below.

This event is a follow-up of the First PRIMA Community Workshop, which was focused on collecting information about all possible science in the far-IR range, and associated requirements. Now that the team has had an opportunity to develop the concept within the framework of a probe cost cap, this year’s workshop will be an opportunity to take census of what the community will do with PRIMA. We expect that the outcome for this workshop will be a series of initial drafts of contributed science cases that will be collated into a PRIMA Science Book for publication this fall.

PRIMA is designed as a powerful survey and discovery machine, with its orders of magnitude sensitivity and speed for spectroscopy and imaging across the 25 - 260 µm band. While the PI-led science team will execute modest programs geared towards demonstrating PRIMA’s capabilities, the bulk of PRIMA observing time will be devoted to general observer (GO) programs. Moreover, all of PRIMA’s data will be available for archival research, a particularly compelling opportunity given the wide wavelength coverage intrinsic to all PRIMA observing modes.

Workshop attendees will learn about the PRIMA concept, its instruments and expected performance. In addition, we will invite attendees (and the community at large) to help maximize PRIMA’s science return by developing one or more GO or archival science cases. Attendees will have the opportunity to briefly present their science interests in the breakout sessions by presenting a couple of slides to seed discussion.

Following the Workshop, we will encourage participants (and including those who are interested but cannot attend) to write up their science cases as brief (2-3 pages) authored contributions that we will collate into the PRIMA Science Book. These contributions will help NASA and the PRIMA team create a suitable framework for a GO program which can accommodate the full range of potential PRIMA science, and they will demonstrate the impact and value of the PI-led programs for archival research, and the wide range of topics that could be addressed by GO-led observations. The due date for contributions will be in June.

Be sure to register below for the Workshop to receive updates on the agenda, topics for the breakout sessions, and how to contribute to the Science Book.

Note: USA switched to daylight savings time on March 12; European countries remain on standard time through the workshop.