Spitzer Space Telescope Cycle-13 Call for Proposals

Release Date:  9 February 2016
Frontier Legacy & Exploration Science Letters of Intent Due:  24 March 2016
Proposal Deadline: 8 June 2016, 4:00 pm PDT

On behalf of NASA and the Spitzer Space Telescope Project, the Spitzer Science Center (SSC) at Caltech is pleased to announce the release of the Cycle-13 Call for Proposals (CP). This is the final CP for the Spitzer mission that will solicit all proposal sizes. 14,000 hours of observations are solicited for execution between 1 October 2016 and 30 September 2018. The NASA Science Mission Directorate budget currently supports Spitzer operations through September 2016. Both the Astrophysics and the Planetary Science Divisions are supporting Spitzer operations.

The execution of Spitzer Cycle-13 is contingent on the results from the 2016 NASA Astrophysics Senior Review and the allocation of operations funding for FY17-18. An update will be issued to this CP prior to the deadline if necessary.

Major changes in the Cycle-13 call for proposals, compared to previous cycles, are summarized in the Executive Summary of the CP. A new proposal category, Frontier Legacy, is introduced for programs requiring > 2000 hours. All other proposal sizes are also solicited.

Priority in the selection of Cycle-13 will be given to programs that highlight:

• Astro2010 science themes;
• Planetary science programs observing targets in our Solar System;
• Investigations that concentrate on developing the scientific landscape that JWST will explore, or will help maximize the JWST scientific return.

Innovative investigations with scientific high risk/gain are encouraged.

All programmatic and technical information for Cycle-13 is available electronically from the Proposal Kit section of the Spitzer Science Center website.

Investigators worldwide from all types of institutions are eligible to submit proposals subject to the guidelines provided in the CP. Joint HST or Chandra observations can be proposed as part of a Spitzer Cycle-13 proposal.

All proposals must be submitted electronically using Spot, the SSC proposal planning and submission software. The S19 version of Spot is available from the SSC website and via the auto-update feature in Spot. Proposers must use this version of the software to submit their proposals. The required Cycle-13 proposal templates are available at the Proposal Kit website and the proposal submission system is open.

Any questions should be addressed to the Spitzer Helpdesk at [email protected]