ACIS Instrument Support - Monthly Progress Report for November 2011

1.  ACIS Characterization

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)

  ...  Continued work on a paper combining CTI, FWHM and background
  monitoring results from ACIS and Suzaku.  Continued writing text for
  A&A paper.  Examined ACIS data taken at -90C in 1999 and 2005 to
  compare to data taken at -120C to help quanitfy the variability of
  CTI evolution due to focal plane temperature.


2.  Engineering

2.1 Instrument hardware engineering performance

  ...  Continue to monitor long term ACIS instrument performance.  All
  ACIS engineering parameters continue to operate within predicted limits.

2.2 Flight software maintenance

  ...  The new flight software patches, which include the txings patch
  to enable ACIS to monitor the radiation environment, was succesfully
  loaded on November 7.  Participated in patch upload CAP review.

2.3 Instrument science performance

  ...  Participated in monthly ACIS operations meeting.  Topics
  included thermal limit changes.

  ...  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.  Patch
  was uploaded in November and output will be examined carefully
  for the next few months to confirm proper function.

  ...  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

  ... Participated in planning telecon for upcoming IACHEC meeting
  (International Astronomical Consortium for High Energy Calibration).

  ...  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.
  Discussion included CC mode CTI calibration and the POG.

  ...  In response to possible calibration problems around the Si-K
  edge, confirmed that the absorption coefficients used in creating
  the CCD quantum efficiency files provided to CXC by the ACIS team
  are correct. 

  ... Reviewed final version of the ACIS chapter for the POG

  ...  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.



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