While the COVID-19 pandemic persists all around the world, ALMA staff at the JAO and in the regions continue to work towards bringing the array back online, with the ultimate goal to resume science operations and deliver high-quality science data to our users. At this moment, the ALMA antennas are in the process of being powered up and inspected after having been stowed for about 300 days. 

The European ARC CalMS service provides Calibrated Measurement Sets (MSs) for ALMA archive data for all users who request them. All European users are encouraged to make use of this service that has succesfully provided more than 500 MSs since October 2019.

The I-TRAIN session in February will serve as a tutorial on the inspection of ALMA WebLogs. The session will be held online on Friday February 19, 2020, 11:00 CET [Zoom link][Calendar (.ics)]. WebLogs are produced by the ALMA pipeline and contain diagnostic information on data calibration and imaging.  This session will teach users how to interpret the WebLog information and how to use it to guide re-imaging ALMA data.

The European ARC Network is offering an online training on simulating observations with the ALMA Observation Support Tool (OST) on Thursday March 11, 2021, 11:00 CET [Zoom link][Calendar (.ics)]. The OST allows users to test the effect of differing array configurations, frequency tunings, pointing strategies and weather conditions on imaging (2D or 3D) a sky-model of their choosing. 

The Joint ALMA Observatory (JAO) is planning to start the observations for Cycle 8 2021 in October 2021. A Call for Proposals (CfP) with detailed information on the new cycle is anticipated to be issued in March 2021 and the deadline for proposal submission will be in April 2021. The purpose of this pre-announcement is to highlight aspects of the CfP to assist with early planning. It also contains information related to the proposal review process. 

The European ALMA Regional Centre invites all European ALMA users to a virtual community assembly on December 18 at 11:00 CET, following the pre-announcement for Cycle 8 2021, scheduled for December 17. At this community meeting, the ALMA director will present the latest on the Return to Operations. You will then be presented with the timeline for the Call for Proposals, the capabilities and changes in the reviewing process for Cycle 8 2021. Finally, you will have the opportunity to ask your questions on all the above in a dedicated Q&A session.

Reserve the date: 18 December at 11:00 CET. The meeting can be accessed at this link. Looking forward to seeing you then!

A new development study, led by the Institut de Radio Astronomie Millimétrique (IRAM) in Grenoble, will investigate the feasibility of upgrading the ALMA Band 7 receivers.

The ESO internal ALMA development study "Bayesian Adaptive Interferometric Image Reconstruction Methods" officially started with a kickoff meeting in December 2020. This study investigates the feasibility of artificial intelligence methodologies to refine the CASA package in view of the ALMA 2030 roadmap.