ACIS Instrument Support - Monthly Progress Report for October 2008

1.  ACIS Characterization

1.1 Characterize and model radiation damage in ACIS CCDs

  ...  Continued work on irradiation/annealing tests done at GSFC
in 2005.  Compared trailing pixel distribution before and after
irradiation and annealing as a function of irradiating proton energy.  

  ...  Executed new SI modes which allow more grades to be 
telmetered.  These SI modes are being used to compare TE and CC 
mode grade rejection to help calibrate CC mode.  Five ObsIDs 
(57575, 57559, 57546, 57542, 57533) in October.

1.3 Monitor scientific on-orbit performance of ACIS

  ...  Continued monitoring of ACIS CTI, gain, trailing pixel 
pulseheight, detector efficiency, corner pixel distribution, spectral 
line centroid and width, and focal plane temperature.  Updated 
monitoring web pages.  (http://space.mit.edu/~cgrant/monitor.html)


2.  Engineering

2.1 Instrument hardware engineering performance

  ...  Continue to monitor long term ACIS instrument performance. 
A review of the past 60 days' engineering data indicates nominal  
operation of the ACIS instrument.

2.2 Flight software maintenance

  ...  Successfully loaded a new ACIS flight software patch (version 44)
intended to prevent a particular type of BEP crash.  Four days later the
BEP had a watchdog reboot.  Ran CAP 1081 to warm boot the BEP and restart
DEA housekeeping.  After some though, decided to back out the new patch
and revert to the previous version 31.  Investigation is ongoing.

2.3 Instrument science performance

  ...  Presented ACIS SI team report at the Chandra Quarterly
Review.

  ...  Continued close monitoring of ACIS focal plane 
temperatures.

  ...  Participated in monthly ACIS operations meetings.  Discussed issues
with new flight software patch and planned operations changes for EPHIN.

  ...  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).

3.2 Provide data analysis support

  ...  Participated in CXC Cal/Ops modeling 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.

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


Outreach:

Mentor to high school students participating in the Chandra
Astrophysics Institute (C. Grant)

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