ACIS Instrument Support - Monthly Progress Report for June 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. 
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.  
Awaiting final inputs, then will circulate to wider distribution.


2.  Engineering

2.1 Instrument hardware engineering performance

  ...  Continue to monitor long term ACIS instrument performance. The 
instrument continues to perform nominally.

  ...  Investigated the range of DEAMZT temperature values that were
tested on the ground.

2.3 Instrument science performance

  ...  Participated in "monthly" ACIS operations meeting.  Discussed 
possible new operational constraints due to thermal issues.

  ...  Supported Ops discussions of possible changes to SACGS and OBSCAT
to facilitate optional/required CCD designation and reducing the number
of CCDs in use for observations with bad pitch angles.

  ...  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.


3.  CXC Support

3.1 Provide user support

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

  ...  Answered colleague's questions about calibration source data in
the CXC archive and CTI measurement..

  ...  Provided colleague with position-dependent gain and resolution
data of FI CCDs for comparison of ACIS and XIS CTI degradation.

  ...  Commented on guide to Chandra instrumentation being prepared for
the Chandra peer review.

3.2 Provide data analysis support

  ...  Participated in CXC Cal/Ops modelling discussion group.  
Discussed (among other things) the apparent QE "edge" feature near the 
Si-K edge and incorporating the August 2005 gain jump on I0 and I2 
into the time dependent gain correction.

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

  ...  Provided contamination monitoring data for cross-calibration
meeting in Iceland.

  ...  Answered colleague's questions about flight grades rejected
on-board Chandra.

  ...  Provided data on the August 2005 gain jump for CXC analysis.

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:

Presented short talk about Chandra to 17 kindergartners and their 
teachers at South School in Andover.

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