1620015

The survey of the Galactic Plane has continued as one of the main INTEGRAL scientific objectives because of the scientific potential of both new source discovery and detailed monitoring of already known sources that will provide immediate scientific returns and act as a base for future missions. We propose for a total of 3.0 Ms of observations in AO16 and 3 Ms in AO17 to continue our Key Program covering areas of the Plane with regular scans every orbit. For these AOs we have selected two sections of the Plane incorporating regions centered at l=+30 and l=-30 that are rich in galactic sources (LMXB and HMXB SFXT in particular) and potential MeV/TeV sources.Our purpose is to regularly monitor known systems as well as to dramatically enhance the chances of discovering new systems or new outbursts from known transients. This program will allow a rapid response to bright events and a detailed study of faint transients and their long term activity. Such a programme will be of high value to a very large fraction of the high-energy astronomy community stimulating science immediately and furthermore contributing greatly to the INTEGRAL legacy.In order to maximise the engagement of the scientific community we will continue to make the observations public immediately. The proposal team will provide as they have through AO8-15 the scw-resolution IBIS and JEM-X light curves (in two energy bands) and per-revolution mosaic images publicly available through the web as soon as possible. Any interesting source behaviour that emerges from our observations will be announced promptly in the usual way through Atels so that rapid follow-up by the community is possible as has been already demonstrated. [truncated! Please see actual data for full text]