ACIS Instrument Support - Monthly Progress Report for October 2002

1. ACIS Characterization

1.1 Characterize and model radiation damage in ACIS CCDs

  ...  Continued running charge injection tests on I0 from the command
load.  Accumulating more statistics with two new data sets.

  ...  Continued to analyze data from irradiation/bakeout test at GSFC.  In particular, compared trailing pixel and FWHM numbers to flight bakeout test.

1.2 Design and characterize alternative CCD readout modes

  ...  Supported charge injection tests on-board with lab verification and
testing.

1.3 Monitor scientific on-orbit performance of ACIS

 [...  Began more detailed analysis of ACIS performance evolution for
Chandra Calibration Workshop in November.

  ...  Continued analysis of ExtCalSrc data to search for putative QE
decrease at low energies.  Continued searching for spatially varying QE,
motivated by the temperature gradient across the filter.

  ...  Continued monitoring of ACIS CTI.  No significant changes beyond the
long term slow increase.  Updated web page.
(http://space.mit.edu/~cgrant/cti/)

  ...  Continued monitoring of ACIS gain.  All CCDs stable with a slow
decline in gain slope (ADU/eV) except for I2 which continues to vary.
Updated web page (http://space.mit.edu/~cgrant/gain/).

1.4 Update and improve CCD simulation

  ...  Continued work on detailed physical model of FI CCD including CTI and
sacrificial charge.  Worked on a version of the simulator that can be
incorporated into MARX.

 ...  Continued work on improving BI CCD model.  Compared simulation with
grating data of PKS2155.

2. Engineering

2.1 Instrument hardware engineering performance

  ...  Continue to monitor long term ACIS instrument performance.

 [...] Advised ACIS low energy QE telecon on ACIS thermal characteristics
for bakeout discussion.

2.2 Flight software maintainence

  ...  ACIS flight software patches in-house review conducted on August 6
(Rev C).  Addressing reviewer comments and recommendations.

2.3 Instrument science performance

  ...  Continued daily quick-look processing of ACIS telemetry and
maintained Web interface to ACIS real-time data.

  ...  Continued to publish the "annotated DOT" timeline reports.

 [...] Participated in ACIS telecons

  ...  Continued to support charge injection operations by reviewing loads
and comparing flight data to ground data to select new settings.

 [...] Participated in ACIS science operation team meeting

3. CXC Support

 [...] Participated in SIRTF IRAC team visit.  Presentation on
the role of the ACIS instrument team and interaction with CXC ACIS
team.

3.1 Provide user support

  ...  Updated ACIS memo listing calibration ObsIDs and observation
characteristics (ACIS Memo #165).

3.2 Provide data analysis support

 [...] Participated in CXC Cal/Ops RMF discussion group.

  ...  Continued to maintain ACIS calibration database of ground and flight
data products


4. OCC Support

4.1 Use of MIT/ACIS EGSE at OCC

  ...  Continued support and maintenance of ACIS EGSE software and hardware
at the OCC.

all recent memos available at http://space.mit.edu/ACIS/iacis.html


Outreach:

Two presentations at COSPAR meeting in Houston, TX
   talk by Bautz: "Searching for Faint and Distant Cluster X-ray 
      Emission with Chandra"
   poster by Grant: "Searching for clutsres in the fields of strong 
      gravitational lenses"

Presentation by Grant for SIRTF IRAC team members on the role of 
   the ACIS instrument team and interaction with the CXC ACIS team.