ACIS Instrument Support - Monthly Progress Report for October 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.  Completed draft under review by co-authors.

  ...  Ran one more ECS measurement at warmer focal plane temperature (-110C).  Data will be combined with earlier measurements.  Plan to continue occasional warm observations.

  ...  Prepared slides on ACIS status for the Chandra Quarterly, postponed until November due to the government shutdown.


2.  Engineering

2.1 Instrument hardware engineering performance

  ...  Continue to monitor long term ACIS instrument performance.  Engineering parameters continue their nominal trends.

  ...  ACIS anomaly occurred on Oct 31 in which the I3 CCD stopped reporting events mid-run with highly anomalous delta overclocks.  Very similar to an anomaly on 8 Mar 2011, but with a different FEP/CCD combination.  The scheduled power cycle at the end of the observation cleared the problem.  Previous anomaly was believed to be a result of a SEU in the DEA board.

2.2 Flight software maintenance

  ...  The interface to the Engineering Unit has been successfully switched to a Linux machine.
 
2.3 Instrument science performance

  ...  Participated in monthly ACIS operations meeting.  Discussed progress of linux updates to the engineering unit and thermal issues.

  ...  Prepared memo re-examining prelaunch instrument tests, to determine whether the current on-board limits on panel temperatures are justified (they are).  Involved retrieving 15+ year old data off tape and floppy disk (!)

  ...  Participated in yearly Chandra thermal and constraints briefing.

  ...  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 ACIS response discussion group.  Discussed CC mode calibration, optical light leaks and final checks on upcoming contamination model release.

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

  ...  Provided comments on SOT study of ACIS reponse to optical/IR light.

  ...  Provided comments on new text about CC mode for the ACIS chapter of the Proposers Observatory Guide.


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.  

  ...  Migration of MIT realtime telemetry software to Linux continues.  Linux machine has been installed in TST room and is receiving data.  After identical backup machine is installed and checked out, Solaris machines will be retired.