ACIS Instrument Support - Monthly Progress Report for July 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).

  ...  New raw mode frames collected in July.  Analyzed and posted to http://space.mit.edu/home/fergason/acis/raw.html in August.

  ...  Developing updates to PMON, the ACIS telemetry monitor, which would produce alerts for unexpected FEP resets.  Ran entire telemetry database through the new pmon.  Reviewing the output alerts and the level of contact (email vs text).

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

  ...  Monitored Chandra radiation environment during July 16 solar storm.  The ACIS txings patch did not trigger an instrument shutdown, but came very close.

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 JUL1717 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". 

  ...  Investigating the ACIS relay switches and switch commands, which are required to switch between DEAs.

2.2 Flight software maintenance

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

  ...  Examined ACIS flight software and how it handles relay commanding.  Will inform procedures under work to switch between the DEAs.

2.3 Instrument science performance

  ...  Flight Note 585, describing the FEP thresholder anomaly, was closed out by the FDB.

  ...  Continued to review new ACIS quick-look anomaly reference web pages.  Reviewed new FEP thresholder anomaly web page.

  ...  Continued daily quick-look processing of ACIS telemetry and maintained Web interface to ACIS real-time data.

  ...  Improved on-ground processing of threshold crossing data, to better match the time binning of the on board patch.

  ...  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 about relative instrument backgrounds between ACIS and HRC.

  ...  Kept user informed about radiation environment during highly constrained observation.

3.2 Provide data analysis support

  ...  Participated in CXC Cal/Ops ACIS response discussion group.  Discussed contamination measurement and modeling, and updates to the ACIS QEU.

  ...  Participated in discussions about the illumination pattern of the ACIS calibration source.  Providing and advising on the use of eventlists taken with the ECS on the ground.

  ...  Provided input to study of the HETG instrument background on the time-dependence of galactic cosmic rays with the solar cycle.

  ...  Providing plots for SPIE presentation and paper by O'Dell on ACIS contamination studies, "Modeling contamination migration on the Chandra X-ray Observatory IV".  Reviewed slides.

  ...  Reviewed final version of 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.  Trained final team member on EGSE software.  Working on updating documentation.

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

  ...  Provided the FOT with the original specifications of the ACIS radioactive sources for their end-of-life study.

4.2 Generation of commands for ACIS observations

  ...  Continued review and updating of SACGS documentation (SACGS = SOT ACIS Command Generation System).  Answered user questions about tool warnings, inputs, and locations of different tool versions.

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

  ...  Reviewed AUG0717A command load.

  ...  Reviewed JUL0816U super-schedule test command load.

  ...  Supported ORViewer DOT testing with further checking of the test ObsCat and discussions of how exposure times and bias times are calculated.

  ...  Assigned 1 SI mode. 

  ...  Checking on automated processes associated with SACGS.