ACIS Instrument Support - Monthly Progress Report for November 2016

1.  ACIS Characterization

1.3 Monitor scientific on-orbit performance of ACIS

  ...  Following the Chandra Normal Sun Mode safing action on November 19, verified ACIS was safe, monitored housekeeping data during recovery, and supported safe mode recovery including SI mode reassignment, chip dropping, and load review.

  ...  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).

  ...  Updated versions of the ACIS monitoring software "getnrt" running on all SAO monitoring machines.   

  ...  Discussed changing DPA component monitoring red and yellow limits to better match ground testing limits.  New table of limits created, but not applied, due to questions about applicability of ground tests in the 1990s to the current state of the instrument.

  ...  Presented ACIS instrument team report for the Chandra Quarterly in November.

2.  Engineering

2.1 Instrument hardware engineering performance

  ...  Continue to monitor long term ACIS instrument performance.  A review of the past engineering telmetry shows no unanticipated trends.
  
  ...  The EEPROM checksum was verified in the NOV0716 load.   Will continue to run monthly.  MIT telemetry processing will automatically check the results and send out an alert if the checksum is unexpected.

  ...  Verified room temperature and correct operation of temperature monitoring software for the ACIS engineering unit.

2.2 Flight software maintenance

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

2.3 Instrument science performance

  ...   Final version of paper "Annealing bounds to prevent further Charge Transfer Inefficiency increase of the Chandra X-ray CCDs", first author Corentin Monmeyran.  Resubmitted to NIMB,  accepted and published: .http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0168583X16304906

  ...  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.


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 and bakeout simulations.

  ...  Discussions with calibration scientist on changes in standard processing of ACIS data relevant to long-term gain calibration.

  ... Provided inputs to Project Science on the ACIS team's use of GTO data for instrument calibration and testing.

  ...  Provided ground ECS data to calibration scientist.

  ...  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.  Received and distributed new sotmaxaf EHS password.

4.2 Generation of commands for ACIS observations

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

  ...  Continuing familiarization with SACGS operation and under-the-hood functioning.  Updated all SACGS perl scripts to point to ACIS ops version of perl.  Involved general bookkeeping of scripts in our CVS repository and the executable directory.

  ...  Helped diagnose issue with load review software and default energy filter ranges in the test ObsCat.  

  ...  Helped investigate problem with web page access to ACIS operations web pages after NIS master server migration.

  ...  Answered questions about event histogram SI modes and window blocks.

  ...  Reviewed NOV2116 post-post-final OR.  Reviewed NOV2116A and NOV2116B command loads.  Reviewed NOV2816 preliminary schedule, final OR, post-final OR, and post-post-final OR lists.  Reviewed DEC0516 Long Term Schedule OR list.

  ...  Dropped chips from nine obsids.  Assigned two SI modes.

  ...  Checking on automated processes associated with SACGS.