[Moller] [EXTERNAL] Update on recent MOLLER reviews

[Mark L. Pitt]

Dear MOLLER Collaborator:

We are writing to report on the most recent developments on the MOLLER 
project.

As mentioned in our earlier update on January 6, we now have the full 
report from the Conceptual Design Review Committee (see attached).  Also 
attached is a one slide personal commentary from Mike Snow, the 
committee chair, who personally made the presentation on the CDR review 
report to the January review committee on Jan 14.

The CDR review report served as input to the Director’s pre-CD-1 Review 
committee, which met from January 14 to 16. This review focused 
primarily on the project, though physicists on the panel did scrutinize 
the conceptual design.

Howard did an outstanding job orchestrating all of the presentations and 
the project team made a series of excellent presentations and answered 
all the detailed questions from the committee. The technical talks were 
of course vetted by experts in the various subsystems. At some point 
soon, we will post all the talks to the DocDB.

There was also homework from the committee on the second day. KK 
reported on the answers to the technical questions and Howard responded 
to the project questions. The slides from this presentation are attached.

Finally, the committee provided their closeout comments on the third 
day. They put in a tremendous amount of work and have come up with 
detailed recommendations and comments to help us get ready for the DOE 
CD-1 review, which we hope will get scheduled in the next couple of months.

The committee has not released its final report. However, we attach the 
first few pages of the draft report that was shown at the closeout, 
which contains the executive summary and the brief responses to the 
Charge elements (see attached). The Committee was very positive at the 
closeout and feels that we can soon be ready for the DOE CD-1 review. We 
will provide you with the full report when we receive it.

As all of you know, Howard Fenker retired on the day after the review 
(long-planned!). We owe him an enormous debt of gratitude. We would not 
be where we are today, poised to achieve CD-1, without his non-stop 
dedication to the MOLLER project over the past 12 months.

We also are very grateful to Steve Wood for having agreed to take on the 
leadership of the project team for the near-term.

Finally, we have a very important piece of news: Stuart, the Jlab 
Director, informed us on the final day of the review that Jim Fast, 
currently at PNNL, has accepted an offer to come to JLab and take over 
as the permanent Project Manager of MOLLER. Jim attended the review and 
is fast coming up to speed on the project. He brings a vast amount of 
expertise and experience on running projects in nuclear and particle 
physics at DOE labs. Welcome, Jim!

Jim will permanently move to JLab by mid-May and he plans to spend one 
week each month during the interim period at JLab working with the 
MOLLER team. Jim and Steve are already in discussions about the 
immediate plans to follow the recommendations of the Director’s review 
committee.

We have come a long way in establishing the MOLLER project on a firm 
footing and we are optimistic that the CD-1 review will be scheduled 
soon. The FY2020 funding for MOLLER is now set and we are ready to go 
beyond CD-1 over the next several months.

We will provide you with a further update as soon as the near term plans 
for the project become clearer.

Cheers,
Mark and KK




-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: MOLLERreviewreport1102020.pdf
Type: application/pdf
Size: 184118 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <https://mailman.jlab.org/pipermail/moller/attachments/20200126/1e7edeed/attachment-0004.pdf>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: Snow-MOLLERreviewpresentation_personal.pdf
Type: application/pdf
Size: 37144 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <https://mailman.jlab.org/pipermail/moller/attachments/20200126/1e7edeed/attachment-0005.pdf>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: Jan2020_HW_HF_KK.pdf
Type: application/pdf
Size: 3611274 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <https://mailman.jlab.org/pipermail/moller/attachments/20200126/1e7edeed/attachment-0006.pdf>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: Closeout _Moller_review_draft_rev1_first2pages.pdf
Type: application/pdf
Size: 121420 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <https://mailman.jlab.org/pipermail/moller/attachments/20200126/1e7edeed/attachment-0007.pdf>