ACIS Instrument Support - Monthly Progress Report for June 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).

  ...  Developing updates to PMON, the ACIS telemetry monitor, which would produce alerts for unexpected FEP resets.  Running entire telemetry database through pmon to assess numbers of potential false positive alerts.

  ...  Analyzing ACIS raw data frames to better understand particle interaction in the CCDs and the non-X-ray-background.

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 JUN0517A 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 and provided comment on SOPs: "Turn on DEA-A", "Turn off DEA-A", "Turn on DEA-B", "Turn off DEA-B", "Turn On DEA-A and Test Video Boards".  Included a discussion on enabling and disabling the FP bakeout heater, and how the instrument would respond to a DEA anomaly during a bakeout.

  ...  Cleaned up files and directories used during routine Engineering Unit testing.

2.2 Flight software maintenance

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

  ...  Examined recent threshold crossing data and determined that the current "optimal" parameters in use by the TXINGS patch are still appropriate and new parameters do not yet need to be uploaded.  Will check again in August.

2.3 Instrument science performance

  ...  Participated in monthly ACIS operations meeting.  Reviewed anomaly response web pages, status of SOPs under development, and PMON alerts. 

  ...  Continued to review 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 Backup OCC test.  MIT supported test by receiving simulated telemetry, extracting ACIS science and housekeeping statistics, and reporting on the data quality.


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.

  ...  Reviewed new calibration for temperature and time dependent CTI, particularly any differences in the process for S1 and S3 that could explain the poor results for S1.  Nothing obvious yet.

  ...  Participated in discussions about the illumination pattern of the ACIS calibration source.

  ...  Reviewed slides for and supported annual thermal WG and mission planning constraints WG briefing.

  ...  Prepared summary of IACHEC CCD Working Group activities for upcoming IACHEC newsletter.

  ...  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.

  ...  Provided inputs to the OCC relocation process on the needs of the ACIS operations team.

4.2 Generation of commands for ACIS observations

  ...  Diagnosed issue with failure of routine SI mode assignment.  Was due to a problematic configuration by the observer.  Contacted usint.  Assignment was made after reconfiguration.

  ...  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.

  ...  Finished ACIS ops testing of DS 10.6 and submitted test report, including SACGS, our load review script, and Peter Ford's processing at MIT.

  ...  After update to DS 10.6, discovered issue with a three ancillary SACGS scripts that use python.  Solved by explicitly pointing to the location of python we want to use.

  ...  Reviewed JUN1917L and JUL1917A command loads.  Reviewed JUN2617 preliminary schedules (three times),  JUN2617 final OR list (twice).  Reviewed JUL0317 Long Term Schedule OR list.

  ...  Dropped chips from two obsids.  Assigned 1 SI mode.  Confirmed contingency chip drops SI modes exist for two pre-approved TOO observations.

  ...  Checking on automated processes associated with SACGS.