Announcement for early proposal planning for Cycle 13

ALMA is making the following information available to assist with early proposal planning for Cycle 13.

• Key dates (anticipated) for Cycle 13
  • 19 March 2026: Release of the ALMA Cycle 13 Call for Proposals and Observing Tool, and opening of the archive for proposal submission
  • 23 April 2026: Proposal submission deadline
  • October 2026: Start of Cycle 13 observations, spanning 12 months

• New in Cycle 13
  • Availability of Band 2 capabilities on the 12-m Array will be confirmed by early February.

• Observing modes for Large Programs
  • Large Programs are proposals with an estimated execution time of greater than 50 hours on the 12-m Array (with or without accompanying ACA time) or 150 hours on the 7-m Array in stand-alone mode. Large Programs should not involve time-critical or ToO observations, and may not include observations in full polarization measurements, solar observations, VLBI, Phased Array mode, Astrometric observations or observations requiring bandwidth switching calibration.

• Cycle 13 Configuration schedule
  • The schedule is provided in this page. As previously announced in https://almascience.org/news/announcement-of-expected-capabilities-during-cycle-13, the configuration calendar and capabilities in Cycle 13 will not be affected by the ongoing work on the ALMA Wideband Sensitivity Upgrade.

• Other relevant information
  • We remind users that EHT monitoring mode outside of the usual VLBI campaign window was only offered in Cycle 12 and therefore will not be available in Cycle 13.
  • Further information on the impact of WSU work on Cycle 14 and 15 will be announced with the Call for Proposals.

Full details will be published in the Cycle 13 Call for Proposals.