ACIS Instrument Support - Monthly Progress Report for May 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 MAY0817B 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 SOPs, "4.5_V2.4 Turn on DEA-A". "4.30_V2.2 Turn on DEA-B", "4.31_V2.2 Turn off DEA-B"

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)

  ...  Continued to review new ACIS quick-look anomaly reference web pages.  Ran archival telemetry dump data from a FEP reset anomaly through PMON, added explicit verifiers that could be seen in real-time.  Updated PMON anomaly alerts in general.

  ...  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 questions on ACIS gain stability and possible ways to verify gain calibration for a specific observation.

  ...  Met with user to discuss ACIS CTI calibration.

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.

  ...  Provided list of ECS observations removed from monitoring activities for various reasons (anomalies, high background, etc.) to calibration scientists.  These may need to be removed from calibration as well.

  ...  Reviewed slides for annual thermal WG and mission planning constraints WG briefing.  Commented on MPCWG Next-in-Line guidlines.

  ...  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

  ...  Continued review and updating of SACGS documentation (SACGS = SOT ACIS Command Generation System).  Updated OR list review documentation to add instructions for new chip drop contingency check script.

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

  ...  Added new tool to SACGS to simplify checking for the existence of contingency chip drop SI modes.

  ...  Reviewed high count rate Chandra AO-19 proposals for potential health and safety issues.

  ...  Reviewed joint HST proposals for potential health and safety issues.

  ...  Reviewed MAY2217L, MAY2217A, and MAY2217B command loads.  Reviewed MAY2217 (twice) and MAY2917 preliminary schedules, MAT2217 post-post final OR list and MAY2917 final OR list.  Reviewed JUN0517 Long Term Schedule OR list (twice).

  ...  Dropped chips from three obsid.  Assigned 5 SI modes.

  ...  Checking on automated processes associated with SACGS.

  ...  Submitted test plan and began ACIS ops testing of ASCDS 10.6, including SACGS, our load review script, and Peter Ford's processing at MIT.  Testing completed and test report submitted in June.