ACIS Instrument Support - Monthly Progress Report for February 2013

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.  Added to and edited text.
  Submitted an abstract for the upcoming HEAD meeting.

  ...  Commented on FOT MP proposal to change how ECS measurements are
  scheduled.


2.  Engineering

2.1 Instrument hardware engineering performance

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

2.2 Flight software maintenance

  ...  ACIS BEP went into trickle bias mode on Feb 17.  This can
  trigger a threshold-plane latchup in the FEPs with loss of science
  data, but in this case did not.  Instead, copying of the biases was
  terminated early and the run continued normally.  While most of the
  bias data was not telemetered, ground processing has procedures in
  place already to use replacement biases when necessary.  It is
  believed that the bias copying was terminated by the buscrash2 patch
  which was first loaded in April 2010 and was intended to prevent BEP
  reboots after an SCS107 power-down.

  ...  Upgraded Engineering Unit interface computer to a more recent
  one running Solaris.  New Linux-based hardware for the EU interface
  is being configued and tested.

2.3 Instrument science performance

  ...  Participated in monthly ACIS operations meeting.  Discussion
  included upgrades of the engineering unit and TST machines to Linux.

  ...  Both ACIS and the Chandra OBC are now ready to respond to a
  radiation trigger from the TXINGs patch.  Changing particle
  background will require revisiting the patch parameters a few times
  a year.  Waiting for first ACIS triggered shutdown - no radiation
  shutdowns in February.

  ...  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

  ...  Provided spectral resolution evolution data to model ACIS
  performance after ten years with and without real-time ACE monitoring.

  ...  Participated in planning discussions for the next IACHEC
  meeting (spring 2013).  Finalized program.

  ...  Answered CXC SDS question about an observation with anomalous
  biases.

  ...  Answered CXC SDS query for focal plane temperature history.

  ...  Suggested corrections for CALDB v4.5.6 documentation.

  ...  Participated in CXC Cal/Ops ACIS response discussion group.
  Discussed contamination, CC-mode calibration and low energy gain
  problems on S1.

  ...  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.  Considering options for replacing broken EGSE
  backup machine.

  ...  Work continues on upgrading TST machines to Solaris and then
  Linux.  EGSE code being ported to Linux.


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