Date: Wed, 15 Aug 2007 17:14:42 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: Spitzer Space Telescope Cycle-5 Call for Proposals

Please note: The proposal templates have been updated from last year.
You cannot resubmit your proposal verbatim from previous Cycles.

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Spitzer Space Telescope Cycle-5 Call for Proposals
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Release Date:  15 August 2007
Proposal Deadline: 16 November 2007, 5:00 PM PST


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-5 Call for Proposals (CP) for Spitzer Space Telescope General
Observations (GO), Guaranteed Time Observations (GTO), and funding for
Archival Research (AR) and Theoretical Research (TR) programs.
Investigators worldwide from all types of institutions are eligible to
submit proposals in response to this CP.

Cycle-5 is the last cryogenic cycle for Spitzer, i.e., when MIPS, IRS,
and all of the IRAC channels will be available for use.

There are several new features in the Cycle-5 CP, and investigators
are urged to consult sections 1 and 2 of the document early in their
proposal planning process for a summary of major changes from Cycle-4.
Some of the major changes are:

1) One year of observations will be selected, but we expect only half
of these will fit into the time available prior to the cryogen  depletion;
2) there will not be joint proposals this cycle with HST or Chandra, due
to timing differences among the Great Observatories' proposal cycles;
3) Large (> 200 hour) proposals will be accepted, but are discouraged, due
to uncertainties in the Cycle-5 duration;
4) statistical proposals will be accepted, where a specified number of
observations are required, but the set of observations required is not
unique;
5) time is being set aside for what the Cycle-5 TAC considers
"high risk/high gain" science;
6) moving target observations will now be automatically assessed an  extra
overhead in time duration; and,
7) requests for and dispersal of funding for AR and TR programs has been
greatly simplified. AR/TR programs are only offered for six fixed funding
amounts between $25,000-$150,000.

Observations for Cycle-5 will commence on 1 July 2008.  We expect the
cryogen to be depleted completely during the cycle in approximately March
2009, with an expected uncertainty of 1 month and a worst case uncertainty
of 3 months.

All proposals must be submitted electronically using Spot, the SSC
proposal planning and submission software, and received no later
than Friday, 16 November 2007, 5:00 PM PST.

The S16 version of Spot is now available from the SSC website and via the
auto-update feature in Spot, and proposers must use this version of the
software to submit their proposals.  Note: proposers attempting to
install Spot on a 64-bit Linux platform may encounter problems doing so;
please  see the note "For All Users" on the Spot installation webpage.

** Proposal PDF files MUST be prepared with the Cycle-5
templates available at the Proposal Kit website. **

All programmatic and technical information for Cycle-5 is available
electronically from the Proposal Kit section of the Spitzer Science
Center website. The URL is http://ssc.spitzer.caltech.edu/propkit/.

Any questions should be addressed to the Spitzer Helpdesk at
help@spitzer.caltech.edu.