4. Operations, Data Access, and Education/Outreach

1. Operations

Science and Operations planningSOHO science observing programs are planned through a regular, nested series of meetings

thatleadto anobservingschedulethatisbothsufficientlypredictabletopreventoverburdeningtheexperimentteamsand

flexible enough to allow rapid reaction to observing opportunities and requests.

The overallscience policy and some generaldirectionsfor science programsare setatthe quarterly meetingsof the Science

Working Team (SWT), consisting of the SOHO PI's and the Project Scientists. Requests for joint observations by ground-based

observers (GBO's) and other spacecraft,proposals for new Joint Observing Programs ( JOPs),for reruns of old ones, and plans

for large scale campaigns,arecollectedby the Science OperationsCoordinator (SOC).They arethen andscheduled in the

"SOHO Calendar" together with a weekly schedule for experiment planners and Science Operations Leaders (SOLs), as well as

spacecraftactivities.Thisisupdatedregularlyandputonthe WWWforanyonetosee(http://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/

operations/schedule/calendar.html).

Atmonthly meetings of the SOHO Science Planning Working Group (SPWG), consisting of representatives of all experiments,

the SOC's and the Project Scientist Team,the results of the quarterly meeting is complemented with the plans and priorities of

the individual experiments. The output of the monthly meeting isa day by day schedule of activitiesfor the upcoming month,

and theacceptance(orrejection) ofnewly submitted JOPs.The resultsof thismeeting are also madepublic via theSOHO

WWW pagesfor other observatoriesto use if they wish.

At weekly meetings of the Science Operations Team (SOT), consisting of the operators and planners of the experiments and the

SOC's, a detailed timeline for allinteractive experimentsislaid out,including coordinated operations, spacecraftoperations,

and the schedule forreal-time spacecraftcontact.Thisdaily timeline can be inspected at
http://sohodb.nascom.nasa.gov/synoptic/.images/plan_form/plan_form.gif.

Finally, a brief daily meeting is held every day to report on the status of the spacecraft, experiments, ground system, and ongoing

observing programs,to dealwith any anomalies,and to coordinateselection of observing targetsfor the nextfewdays.The

science part of the daily meetings is chaired by a Science Operations Leader (SOL), who presents a report on the current status

of the Sun, using the latest SOHO quicklook data and recent images from other sources. The SOL is responsible for maintaining

a coherent programof coordinated observations. SOL's rotate on a weekly basis, and are selected from members of the SOHO

experiment teams, and visiting scientists.

Outside investigator participationCommunity participation in SOHO observations and data analysis is extensive and can arise

inseveralways.Jointobservationswith partnersallovertheworld,usuallyinvolvemutualdataaccess,andcanoftenbe

arranged with a minimum of formality by the partner contacting the SOHO SOC's or experiment teammembers. Guest Inves-

tigators (GI's) selected under the ESA/NASA SOHO Guest Investigator Program (see
http://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/operations/guest_investigators/
for first round selectees) are funded through NASA (US selectees) and the individual national fund-

ing agencies (Europe). Guest Investigations canrange from new observing programs, to SOHO data analysis projects, and even

purely theoreticalstudiesrelevantto SOHO observations.There are also frequent,informalCollective Data AnalysisWork-

shops,(CDAW's) involving theoristsand observersfromvariousobservatoriesand experiments.Two ISTP workshopshave

beenheldatGSFC,oneinJanuaryandonein April1997,bothfocusedonearth-directedCME's.A "WholeSunMonth

Workshop" was held in February, and the first SOHO-Yohkohworkshop took place in March, focusing on 6 filament eruptions/

CME's/flares,wellobserved by both spacecraftand many GBO's.The SOHO EOF/EAFisan ideallocation forsuch work-

shops, since there are ample and powerful workstations available, the SOHO andYohkohdata archives are located at GSFC, and

there is a critical mass of solar physicists already present. In addition there is the more formal series of SOHO workshops (held

roughly annually),which hasattracted participation fromthe whole Solar physicscommunity on both sidesof the Atlantic.

Operations in a SOHO Solar Maximum Mission Science programIn the proposed mission one may expect outside participa-

tion to increase throughthe three channelsdescribed above,while thedirecton-line SOHOdataavailability via theSOHO

archive at the EAF will provide an extra stimulus.

SOHO is unique among Solar physics missions in that data are received "live," and the experimentsare commanded in near real