ACIS Instrument Support - Monthly Progress Report for February 2006

1.  ACIS Characterization

1.3 Monitor scientific on-orbit performance of ACIS

  ...  Continued monitoring of ACIS CTI, gain, trailing pixel pulseheight,
detector efficiency and spectral line centroid and width.  Fixed an
inconsistency in temperature filtering.  Added a grade filter for BI
CCD CTI and trailing pixel monitoring.  Updated monitoring web pages.  
(http://space.mit.edu/~cgrant/monitor.html)

  ...  Continued work on memo for the operations team on the consequences
of a future, unprotected radiation belt transit by ACIS.  Incorporating
results from Steve O'Dell the evolution of the trapped-proton fluence
in Chandra's orbit.


2.  Engineering

2.1 Instrument hardware engineering performance

  ...  Continue to monitor long term ACIS instrument performance.
A review of the past 60 days of engineering data shows no anomalous 
behavior.  The instrument continues to perform nominally.

2.3 Instrument science performance

  ...  Supported Ops discussion of changes to SACGS (SOT/ACIS Command
Generation Software) to utilize new and better calibrated energy-to-ADU
conversions.

  ...  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.

  ...  Began the process, in response to a request from the ACIS PI,
to develop strategies for using ACIS as a backup radiation detector.
Tested two candidate triggers.  Initial results indicate missing and
false-positive triggers are unacceptably high.


3.  CXC Support

3.1 Provide user support

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

3.2 Provide data analysis support

  ...  Working with CXC SDS to validate acis_process_events implementation
of serial CTI correction.  Satisfied that new version of a_p_e calculates
serial CTI correction correctly.

  ...  Working with CXC Cal on CTI correction calibration.  Validated
CTI calibration products for S3 at -110C and S1 at -120C and -110C.

  ...  Participated in CXC Cal/Ops modelling discussion group.
Updated group on progress with S3 CTI correction implementation.  Presented
performance improvement from new CTI correction calibration products for
S3 and S1 at -120C and -110C.  Supported discussion of temperature
filters for calibration data.

  ...  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.

  ...  Continued work on improving configuration management of the ACIS
workstations in the TST area of the Chandra OCC.  Work nearly complete.


Outreach:

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