We propose to build a Multi-Aperture Scintillation Sensor (MASS) for continuous monitoring of the vertical turbulence profile with low resolution. One such instrument will be built at the Moscow University and delivered to CTIO by the end of 2001, together with the associated software. A period of tests will start in 2002, aimed at calibrating MASS against other instruments (DIMM and, possibly, SCIDAR) and learning the characteristics and restrictions of this new technique in a practical way.
An identical instrument will be built in parallel for ESO, this project is already started (M. Sarazin is the project leader on the ESO side). So, both ESO and CTIO will share the experience (and, possibly, the cost of inter-calibration missions) in a framework of the already established collaboration on site testing in Chile between the two organizations.
The deliverables of this project are the MASS instrument itself (including control and data reduction software) and the results of its tests at CTIO. Inter-calibration with SCIDAR cannot be defined now and is outside the scope of this project.
The successful completion of this project would form a basis for proposing the MASS instrument for site testing programs related to Extremely Large Telescopes. With an additional engineering input, a new generation of robotic seeing monitors which measure seeing, turbulence profile and atmospheric time constant can be created and deployed at the potential ELT sites to meet the needs of their characterization for adaptive optics.