ACIS Instrument Support - Monthly Progress Report for May 2014

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.  Adding more details on particle environment modeling.

  ...  Collected new raw frames and updated monitoring web page.  (http://space.mit.edu/~fergason/acis/raw.html)

  ...  Submitted abstract for August HEAD meeting on "The Effects of Orbital Environment on X-ray CCD Performance".

  ...  Writing SPIE proceedings paper on ACIS performance evolution after 15 years.  Meeting will take place in June.

  ...  Prepared poster for June AAS meeting on "The Effects of Orbital Environment on X-ray CCD Performance".


2.  Engineering

2.1 Instrument hardware engineering performance

  ...  Continue to monitor long term ACIS instrument performance.  Engineering parameters remain nominal.

2.2 Flight software maintenance

  ...  Developing plan for moving the ACIS Engineering Unit from NE80 to the new MIT CXC space in NE83.  Move Readiness Review scheduled for July 23, to be followed by a briefing to the Chandra FDB.  Developing test scripts to verify ACIS EU hardware performance before and after the move.  The move itself will take place in August.

  ...  Procedures for upload of flight software patch F-G-H completed and reviewed.  The patch, an update to buscrash2, addresses Software Problem Reports 148 and 150.  Procedures will be presented for approval by the FDB in June and uploaded soon afterwards.  (ftp://acis.mit.edu/pub/ACIS_Patch_F-G-H.pdf)

2.3 Instrument science performance

  ...  Participated in monthly ACIS operations meetings.  Discussed next flight software patch, thermal issues, and the MIT building move.

  ...  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).
 
  ...  Answered user question on evolution of QE uniformity and its calibration.

3.2 Provide data analysis support

  ...  Participated in CXC Cal/Ops ACIS response discussion group.  Reviewed a study of the temperature-dependent CTI correction, issues with contamination calibration, etc.

  ...  Attended 9th IACHEC meeting.  Chaired sessions on operating missions, CCDs, and backgrounds.  Participated in discussions on contamination mitigation, background flares, and deep CCD traps.

  ...  Continued to maintain ACIS calibration database of ground and flight data products.
  
  ...  Preparing for move of equipment and personel from NE80 to NE83.  Setting up card access security.  Office move will take place in June.


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.