ACIS Instrument Support - Monthly Progress Report for August 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).  Reviewing list of ACIS software housekeeping items which would trigger alerts in the new PMON.

  ...  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 AUG1417 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 and test video boards".

  ...  Investigating the ACIS relay switches and switch commands, which are required to switch between DEAs.  Reviewing flight software source code and how the commands to switch relays are sent and processed.

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 meeting.  Reviewed our knowledge of the ACIS relays, and thermals models for BEP and FEP components.

  ...  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.

  ...  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 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.

  ...  Answered ACIS ops questions on ECS CCD usage and calibration priorities.

  ...  Provided comments on 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.  Working on updating documentation.

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 joint NRAO proposals for potential health and safety issues.

  ...  Reviewed AUG0717A, AUG2117A and AUG1917A command loads.  Reviewed AUG1417, AUG1917, and AUG2817 preliminary schedules and final OR lists.  Reviewed AUG2117 and SEP0417 (twice) Long Term Schedule OR lists.

  ...  Assigned two SI mode.  Dropped chips from 11 ObsIDs.

  ...  Prepared timeline for very bright source observation, to facilitate monitoring of observatory state in real-time.

  ...  Checking on automated processes associated with SACGS.