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Continued operations with ALIS

``Determinismens huvudskäl är kausalitetslagen.
Indeterminismens huvudskäl är ansvarskänslan.''
The design work on ALIS started in 1990. Thus most of the technology of the system is about ten years old and consequently the need for upgrades and technical maintenance has increased. Unfortunately, this has not been possible, mainly because of budgetary constraints. As the measurement season of 2000/2001 ended, ALIS was put into hibernation, mainly to give the author a chance to finish this report, but also due to a shortage of staff and funding. Since then, 1-2 ALIS imagers have occasionally been operated manually, primarily for studies of HF pump-enhanced airglow. In the fall of 2001 funding covering operation and some technical maintenance was received for the period 2002-2004.

From a scientific point of view, a continued and enhanced operation of ALIS can be motivated solely on the new questions raised by the observations of HF pump-enhanced airglow (Section 6.4). The recent promising observations of meteor trails (Section 6.6.2), as well as continued auroral studies (Section 6.5) also constitute strong arguments for a prolonged operation of ALIS.

This short appendix outlines how to assess the present status of ALIS in order to make a plan for bringing ALIS back into full operation. It is assumed that the present funding situation is stable for 2003/2004, and that performing new measurements, as well as analysing existing data, will enable a sustained funding at the present level, or higher. The most limited resource for ALIS has always been the staff. Here it is assumed that a stable group of at least 3-4 physicists, with a thorough scientific and technical knowledge of ALIS, is available to at least 50% for engineering and programming tasks, as well as general maintenance. (Ideally ALIS should have access to an electronics engineer and one programmer. However given the present situation this is not considered economically feasible.)



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