Time Allocation and Long-Term Scheduling of ESO Telescopes at La Silla Paranal Observatory

TL;DR

This paper discusses the development of a new, efficient, and flexible scheduling tool for ESO telescopes that optimizes resource use and allows dynamic re-scheduling to improve long-term observational planning.

Contribution

It introduces a novel scheduling tool that enhances efficiency, optimizes resource allocation, and supports dynamic re-scheduling for ESO telescopes.

Findings

Improved scheduling efficiency at ESO telescopes.

Enhanced resource utilization and operational planning.

Enabled dynamic re-scheduling for long-term planning.

Abstract

The preparation of the long-term telescope schedule follows the submission and scientific review of new proposals. At the European Southern Observatory (ESO) this process entails scheduling the scientific proposals according to their scientific merit and available observing resources, as well as scheduling technical, maintenance, and commissioning activities for all operational telescopes of the La Silla Paranal Observatory. After the recent overhaul of the phase 1 proposal submission software, ESO started the development of a new telescopes time allocation and scheduling tool. The new tool makes the scheduling process more efficient while optimising the use of observing facilities. Besides scheduling activities and allocating time according to scientific merit, available resources, operational and programmatic needs, the tool will enable simultaneous scheduling of multiple telescopes to appropriately account for dependencies between them. The implementation of this new Time Allocation tool opens the possibility for dynamic re-scheduling of the telescopes, which is a pre-requisite to implementing a "Yearly Call for Proposals" along with the "Fast Track Channel" at ESO.