ACIS Instrument Support - Monthly Progress Report for April 2017

1.  ACIS Characterization

1.3 Monitor scientific on-orbit performance of ACIS

  ...  Follwing Chandra Bright Star Hold on March 31, verified ACIS was safe, monitored housekeeping data during recovery, and supported safe mode recovery including SI mode reassignment, chip dropping, and load review.  Ran two CAPs to collect additional 88 ksec of ECS data during the shutdown period.

  ...  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).

  ...  Released updated and corrected template CAPs and how-to-use procedures for RTS ECS CTI measurements.  Updates motivated by recent BSH/NSM shutdowns in which yielded substantial ECS time. Final minor edits.  Tested simulate_cti_run, script which runs thermal models to predict temperatures during proposed real-time long CTI measurements.

  ...  Prepared slides for and presented at the Chandra Quarterly in April. 

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 APR1717B 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 updated SOP, "4.11_V2.1 Put ACIS into thermal standby mode."  Updated to reflect current operations.

  ...  Reviewed updated SOP, "4.5_V2.4 Turn on DEA-A".

  ...  Powered off ACIS engineering unit during building power shutdown.  After power was restored, tests of all EU components were nominal.

2.2 Flight software maintenance

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

2.3 Instrument science performance

  ...  Released new ACIS memo "Repairing Bit Errors in Compressed ACIS Packets".  Motivated by recent 2-bit error in an ACIS bias map and the need to document the repair process. (ftp://acis.mit.edu/pub/acis-bias-bit-flip-v1.0.pdf)

  ...  Participated in monthly ACIS operations meetings.  Discussed safing actions in March and new/updated ACIS SOPs.

  ...  Discussed possible thermal testing of contaminated ACIS-like OBF filters with an interested group in Europe. 

  ...  Continued daily quick-look processing of ACIS telemetry and maintained Web interface to ACIS real-time data.  Problems with fencepost timing file required some reprocessing of recent 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 contamination measurement and modeling, and improvements to response calibration.

  ...  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.  

  ...  Further improved documentation on the use of the ACIS EGSE machines in the absence of an expert user and general TST room instructions.  Confirmed that SOT shift repoerts from previous ACIS real-time activities were posted to the appropriate web page.

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.

  ...  Fixed usage message for "scandrophist" tool, used to confirm whether interrupted command loads include observations with dropped chips.

  ...  Reviewed APR2417A command load.  Reviewed MAY0117 preliminary schedule (twice), final OR lists.  Reviewed MAY0817 Long Term Schedule OR list (twice).

  ...  Dropped chips from one obsid.

  ...  Checking on automated processes associated with SACGS.