ACIS Instrument Support - Monthly Progress Report for March 2016

1.  ACIS Characterization

1.3 Monitor scientific on-orbit performance of ACIS

  ...  Following the Chandra safe mode on March 3, verified ACIS was safe, monitored housekeeping data, supported safe mode recovery.

  ...  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).

  ... Requested new raw mode frames.  One set collected in March, the other was postponed to April.

  ... Prepared slides for the Chandra Quarterly in April.

2.  Engineering

2.1 Instrument hardware engineering performance

  ...  Continue to monitor long term ACIS instrument performance.  Engineering housekeeping remains nominal.

  ...  Contents of EEPROM dump from February verified by comparison to data downlinked previously.  Reviewed ATS commands which will be put into the daily load on a monthly schedule.

  ...  Reviewed Flight Note 572 to closeout DEA anomaly report from 2005.  Presented at and approved by FDB on March 24.

2.2 Flight software maintenance

  ...  Flight software patch F-G-H (improved buscrash2) uploaded in June 2014.

  ...  As part of the March 3 safe mode recovery, discovered 1STAT1ST bit had not set to zero, indicating that a science process was still active.  The anomaly was quickly duplicated on the Engineering Unit and identified as an anomaly in a combination of two flight software patches.  A warmboot was run as part of the recovery process which cleared the status bit.
       * Opened SPR 151: SCS107 commands failed to terminate a science run during bias creation (http://acis.mit.edu/axaf/spr/prob0151.html)
       * Developed new ACIS flight software patch that would prevent this anomaly. ECO-1051: buscrash patch to force SCIENCE_IDLE when all FEPs powered off (http://acis.mit.edu/axaf/eco/eco-1051.pdf)
       * As the anomaly is rare and has a simple recovery process, decided not to continue patch certification and review.
       * As the warmboot reset the TXING parameters to the default values, submitted a SAR to update the parameters in the MAR2116 load.

2.3 Instrument science performance

  ...  Participated in monthly ACIS operations meetings.  Discussed EEPROM ATS, SOP development, new safe mode anomaly & potential software patch, and bakeout study plans.

  ...  Presentation by MIT materials science graduate student examining the ACIS reverse annealing experience and confirming our qualitative explanation with a quantitative analysis.  Awaiting written report.

  ...  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

  ...  ACIS memo listing calibration ObsIDs and observation characteristics (ACIS Memo #165) will no longer be updated.  Functionality is replaced by new web page (http://acis.mit.edu/asc/evt-page.html), which provides the same information but is more automated.

3.2 Provide data analysis support

  ...  Participated in CXC Cal/Ops ACIS response discussion group.  Discussion included contamination measurements and modeling, FP temperature limits for mission planning, and updating ACIS RMFs.

  ... Participated in IACHEC meeting in Pune, India.  Organized Detectors Working Group session.  Gave talk on ACIS temperature-dependent CTI correction evolution.
  
  ...  Continued to maintain ACIS calibration database of ground and flight data products.  After a planned power shutdown at MIT, computer that hosted the ACIS calibration data was unbootable.  Disks containing the data were moved to a new machine.  Monitoring and data backup scripts updated to point to the new location.
  

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.  Performed monthly check of all ACIS hardware and software.

4.2 Generation of commands for ACIS observations

  ...  Continued review and updating of SACGS documentation (SACGS = SOT ACIS Command Generation System).  Reviewed new documentation of SACGS error messages.

  ...  Continuing familiarization with SACGS operation and under-the-hood functioning, including the process of building, testing, and installing new flight software patches.

  ...  Reviewed MAR2116 preliminary schedule and final OR list.  Reviewed MAR1116A and MAR1116B fast TOO interrupt load.

  ...  Assigned eleven SI modes on request, including building one new SI mode.  Dropped chips from seventeen obsids.

  ...  Did an additional chip drop contingency mode check for AO-17.  Built four new SI modes and a power command.  Installed corresponding ACIS tables at the OCC.

  ...  Checking on automated processes associated with SACGS.

  ...  Wrote a memo for ACIS operations team on how to access DEA and engineering housekeeping data from Chandra telemetry dumps using MIT tools.