ACIS Instrument Support - Monthly Progress Report for February 2017

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).
  

2.  Engineering

2.1 Instrument hardware engineering performance

  ...  Continue to monitor long term ACIS instrument performance.  All engineering data remains nominal.
  
  ...  The EEPROM checksum was verified in the FEB0517 load.   Will continue to run monthly.  MIT telemetry processing will automatically check the results and send out an alert if the checksum is unexpected.

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 ACIS anomaly response web pages, including various corner cases and contingencies, and team communication.  Also discussed thermal modeling and status.

  ...  Participated in project-wide telecon on ACIS bakeout studies.  Summarized the MIT team work on understanding and quantifying the flight experience with cold irradiation and bakeout and predictions for future bakeouts.

  ...  Continuing to review new ACIS quick-look anomaly reference web pages.  Final reviews of DPA-A and DPA-B shutdown anomaly pages.

  ...  As part of the review of the DPA-B shutdown anomaly response page, investigated the response of the instrument to a shutdown and restart of DPA-B during a science run that does not use the DPA-B powered FEPs with testing on the ACIS engineering unit.  (This is one of the corner cases mentioned above)  Test results documented in memo: "Effect of DPA Power-Cycling during a Science Run" ftp://acis.mit.edu/pub/acis-dpab-powerdown-v1.0.pdf

  ...  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.

  ...  Answered user question on the accuracy and evolution of ACIS QE uniformity at high energies.

  ...  Answered user question about instrumental features in the 3-4 keV range.

  ...  Provided documentation on the ACIS External Calibration Source to interested researchers.

3.2 Provide data analysis support

  ...  Participated in CXC Cal/Ops ACIS response discussion group.  Discussed contamination measurement and modeling, QEU evolution, and planning for the Chandra participation in the IACHEC meeting.

  ...  Participated in planning telecon for upcoming 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.

  ...  Released better documentation of the ACIS EGSE machines, particularly for anomaly recovery response in the absence of an expert user.  Trained ACIS operations personnel.

4.2 Generation of commands for ACIS observations

  ...  Continued review and updating of SACGS documentation (SACGS = SOT ACIS Command Generation System).  Updated OR list review documentation to add warnings for solar system objects or other non-standard pointing.

  ...  Continuing familiarization with SACGS operation and under-the-hood functioning.

  ...  Did a check for chip drop SI modes for all remaining observations in AO-16, AO-17, and AO-18.  Built and tested three new and one updated SI modes to cover all contingencies up to dropping 3 chips with 2 chips remaining on.  Installed new ACIS tables at the OCC.

  ...  Discussed modernization of SI modes and how the video offset update was done in 2011.  Updated software that feeds SI mode finder web page to remove outdated modes from the display.  Moved into production area and reran monthly cron job to update web page inputs.

  ...  Removed a warning about potential pointing inaccuracy when assigning an SI mode with a small subarray or spatial window from the ACIS command generation rules.

  ...  Started building Next-in-Line event histogram SI modes that use 4-chips instead of 5, to be used when thermal conditions require.

  ...  Reassigned SI modes for test OCAT archive used in testing new FOT command load generation software.

  ...  Reviewed FEB1517A and FEB2017A command loads.  Reviewed FEB2717 preliminary schedule, final OR and final NIL ER lists.  Reviewed FEB2717 Long Term Schedule OR list.

  ...  Dropped chips from one obsid.  Assigned four SI modes.

  ...  Checking on automated processes associated with SACGS.