ACIS Instrument Support - Monthly Progress Report for September 2016

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.  Working on improvements to spectral line fitting in the low-count rate regime. (http://space.mit.edu/~cgrant/monitor.html).

  ...  Updated versions of the ACIS monitoring software "pmon" and "getnrt" running for all the SAO monitoring machines which should be more robust against noisy or confusing telemetry at the beginning of contacts.  A new test version of "pmon" has been developed that outputs a log file of the alerts and errors displayed on the web page.  Currently installed on one of the ACIS virtual machines (aciscdp-v) as a test.  Remaining machines will be updated in the future.  

2.  Engineering

2.1 Instrument hardware engineering performance

  ...  Continue to monitor long term ACIS instrument performance.  1PIN1AT continues to shift between believable and open, but all else is nominal.
  
  ...  The EEPROM checksum was verified in the SEP1916 load.   Will continue to run monthly.  MIT telemetry processing will automatically check the results and send out an alert if the checksum is unexpected.

  ...  Reviewed FOT procedures and scripts for switch_bepa_b switch_bepb_a.  Approved by the FDB September 22.

  ...  Resolved minor problem with interface to the engineering unit frame buffer that prevented SI mode testing.  Resolved by a power cycle.

2.2 Flight software maintenance

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

2.3 Instrument science performance

  ...  Participated in monthly ACIS operations meetings.  Discussed instrument status, 1DPAMZT limits, procedure status, and bakeout studies.

  ...  Preparing memo on ACIS DPA component temperatures, including pre-flight thermal testing and ACIS team recommendations on future yellow/red limits.  Released in October.  (ftp://acis.mit.edu/pub/acis-dpa-temps-v1.1.pdf)

  ...  Substantial review and editing of paper "Annealing bounds to prevent further Charge Transfer Inefficiency increase of the Chandra X-ray CCDs", first author Corentin Monmeyran.  Submitted to NIMB.

  ...  Contributing to new ACIS quick-look anomaly reference web pages.

  ...  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.

2.5 Participate in Chandra activities

...  Participated in FOT anomaly simulation, with had an ACIS component.  Lead the ACIS operations team in assessing ACIS status and developing a plan.


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.  Discussed updates to tgain, and to the temperature-dependent CTI correction.

  ...  Participated in separate discussions of tgain results and updated processing software, and how updates to the temperature-dependent CTI correction will interact with tgain calibration.

  ...  Participated in discussions of how to estimate the UV exposure of the ACIS focal plane, important for determining if polymerization of the ACIS contaminant is important.

  ...  Worked on adding time-evolution to the BI CCD CTI-temperature relationship used by acis_process_events.  Proposed updates submitted to CXC Cal for testing in October.

  ...  Participated in planning telecon for next IACHEC meeting (March in California).

  ...  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.  Performed monthly check of all ACIS hardware and software in the TST room at the OCC.

4.2 Generation of commands for ACIS observations

  ...  Completed global SI mode assignment for all observations in AO-18.  Ran initial steps to uncover problematic configurations and assess how many new modes will be required.  Found a work-around to a minor bug.  Built 13 new TE modes, 1 new window block, and 2 new CC modes.  Installed new ACIS tables at the OCC.

  ...  Completed building SI modes for potential future chip drops.  This covers all 1-, 2-, and 3-chip drop contingencies down to two CCDs.  Built 17 new TE modes, 3 new CC modes, and 4 new power commands.  Installed new ACIS tables at the OCC.

  ...  Continued review and updating of SACGS documentation (SACGS = SOT ACIS Command Generation System).  Updated or2simodes documentation with an explanation of an additional warning.  Updated global assignment documentation for clarity.

  ...  Continuing familiarization with SACGS operation and under-the-hood functioning.  To-do list of planned updates distributed to operations team.

  ...  Reviewed SEP1916 post-final OR list.  Reviewed SEP1916A command load.  Reviewed SEP2616 preliminary schedule, final, and post-final OR list and ER list.  Reviewed OCT0316 Long Term Schedule OR list.

  ...  Reviewed SEP1916X test command load.

  ...  Dropped chips from four obsids.  Assigned three SI modes.

  ...  Checking on automated processes associated with SACGS.