ACIS Instrument Support - Monthly Progress Report for October 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.  Made minor adjustments to more consistently filter out usually high background data when desirable and proper include ECS data taken with 5- and 4-chips.  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.  Full ACIS ops team has reviewed the new yellow/red alert designations and the S/W Housekeeping channels list. Updated pmon will be deployed in the near future.

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

  ...  Presented ACIS status for the Chandra Quarterly in October.


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 OCT0917 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 SOP: Turn on DEA-A and Test Video Boards

2.2 Flight software maintenance

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

  ...  Received documentation from the FOT about the OBC command encoding.  Will be used to better document the non-ACIS commands in various ACIS related CLD files.
  
2.3 Instrument science performance

  ...  Created new ACIS quick-response web page for the ACIS Science Run Termination Failure Anomaly.  This anomaly can occur when an SCS-107 is commanded during bias creation.  The solution is a warmboot.

  ...  Participated in monthly ACIS operations meeting.  Reviewed plans for ACIS area in new OCC space, updates to pmon alerts, and SOP development.

  ...  Continued daily quick-look processing of ACIS telemetry and maintained Web interface to ACIS real-time data.  Working on further automating this process.

  ...  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 updates to the ACIS QEU, temperature dependence of hot pixels, and using Crab for absolute flux calibration.

  ...  Splinter discussion of measuring QEU and QEU evolution.
  
  ...  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.

  ...  Discussion between MIT ACIS, SOT ACIS, and the FOT on the requirements of the ACIS area in the new OCC.  Began talking to MKI IT about the purchase of new hardware.  Memo describing the MIT ACIS plan for the move is under review.

4.2 Generation of commands for ACIS observations

  ...  Completed building SI modes for potential future chip drops.  This covers all 1-chip and 2-chip drop contingencies down to two CCDs.  Built 2 new TEmodes.  Installed new ACIS tables at the OCC.

  ...  Confirmed with CDO that updates to the Chandra RPS form do not change the backend interaction to the Observation catalog (and thus to ACIS command generation).

  ...  Working on an updated load review checklist item, to better define when dither is required to be active.

  ...  Continued review and updating of SACGS documentation (SACGS = SOT ACIS Command Generation System).

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

  ...  Reviewed joint Chandra/XMM proposals for potential health and safety issues.

  ...  Reviewed OCT2317A and OCT2317B command loads.  Reviewed OCT2317 (x2) and OCT3017 preliminary schedules and final OR lists.  Reviewed NOV0617 Long Term Schedule OR lists.

  ...  Assigned 3 SI modes.  Dropped chips from 13 ObsIDs.

  ...  Checking on automated processes associated with SACGS.