ACIS Instrument Support - Monthly Progress Report for January 2010

1.  ACIS Characterization

1.1 Characterize and model radiation damage in ACIS CCDs

  ...  Continued work on irradiation/annealing tests done at GSFC
in 2005.  Writing up as a paper.

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)

  ...  Presented ACIS instrument status at ACIS team meeting in 
State College, PA.


2.  Engineering

2.1 Instrument hardware engineering performance

  ...  Continue to monitor long term ACIS instrument performance. 
With one exception this month, ACIS hardware continues to operate nominally.

  ... A new and novel interruption of service occurred for ACIS this month: 
a (cold) reboot of the Back-end Processor with no evidence of a Watchdog
flag. In addition the patch buffer was empty, consistent with a cold
boot condition.  Subsequently we reloaded the patches, executed a warm 
boot, and resumed normal science operations.

2.2 Flight software maintenance

  ...  Testing and documentation of new flight software standard patch 
release E completed.  Patch review took place in early January.  Patch
release E fixes the problems with release D.  This version includes two 
new standard patches, badpix and buscrash2, which address software problem 
reports 141 and 142.

  ...  Reviewed multiple CAPs in response to the BEP reboot anomaly,
to restart DEA housekeeping, dump flight SW patches, reload flight
software version 44, and reset focal plane temperature setpoint to -121C.

2.3 Instrument science performance

  ...  Continued investigation into whether ACIS can act as it's own
radiation monitor, prompted by action from the thermal working group
which is concerned about the continued degradation of EPHIN.  Examining
available data taken in high radiation environments, i.e. at low 
altitudes or immediately preceeding radiation shutdowns.  Early results
presented at splinter meeting.

  ...  Participated in radiation working group telecon.  Presented
updated ACIS CTI data history, specifically looking for changes since
the perigee backoff time was reduced.

  ...  Participated in monthly ACIS operations meeting.  Discussed
focal plane temperatures, other thermal trends, the new flight software
patch, and the BEP power anomaly/cold reboot.

  ...  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.  Discussed
status of temperature-dependent CTI correction software and CC-mode 
calibration.

  ...  Reviewed tests of the temperature-dependent CTI correction algorithm.

  ...  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.


Outreach:

none this month

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