ACIS Instrument Support - Monthly Progress Report for February 2019

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).

  ...  ACIS real-time monitoring machine acisocc-w moved to Wayside, received an OS update and renamed acisway.  Restored monitoring software and ready to receive data.

  ...  Multiple ACIS real-time monitoring machines had their OS updated which required either updating perlbrew, or deleting and completely reinstalling perlbrew, perl, and our required perl modules.

2.  Engineering

2.1 Instrument hardware engineering performance

  ...  Continue to monitor long term ACIS instrument performance.  A review of engineering data over the past 60 days shows no unexpected trends.
  
  ...  The EEPROM checksum was verified in the FEB0419 load.   Will continue to run monthly.  MIT telemetry processing will automatically check the results and send out an alert if the checksum is unexpected.

  ...  A limit violation of 1DAHTAEN and 1DAHTAON persisting for one major frame was reported by the FOT (Detector Housing Heater Enable and On).  ACIS monitoring requires violations to persist for more than one major frame, so it did not identify a violation.  Examining the telemetry stream showed a particular kind of telemetry corruption that has been seen four times, and never persists for more than a single major frame.

2.2 Flight software maintenance

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

  ...  We continue to monitor threshold crossing rates.  The current TXINGS parameters, which were last updated on July 28, 2016, may need to be updated in the next few months to keep the trigger thresholds well above the increasing particle background.  This update will likely be the last increase, as the rates should subsequently start dropping again.

  ...  Continuing forward with ACIS patch level G-H-I.  This patch makes two changes to the current F-G-H patches.  Updated buscrash2 patch to force end of science run following SCS107, and new deahktrip patch to respond to "red alert" DPA component temperatures.  Ready to build the command packets to upload and for approval by the Flight Directors Board.

2.3 Instrument science performance

  ...  Participated in monthly ACIS operations meeting.  Discussed OCC move and issues with the Sco X-1 observation.

  ...  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 new contamination measurements, and new fits to ECS data.

  ...  Continued to maintain ACIS calibration database of ground and flight data products.

  ...  Participated in planning telecon for upcoming IACHEC meeting (May in Japan).
  

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.

  ...  Continued support of the move of the OCC to Wayside.  MIT EGSE machines setup at Wayside.  ACIS team began receiving access cards.  Ready for pre-phase 3 tests on the EGSE which use pre-recorded data and do not require a functioning network.  Finalized required ACIS phase 3 tests.  Preparing for phase 2 ACIS EHS test.  Still in discussions on the exact network architecture for the EGSE machines.

4.2 Generation of commands for ACIS observations

  ...  Februrary included an observing campaign of Sco X-1, the brightest persistent X-ray source in the sky.  Worked with USINT to create ACIS commands.  Proposed configuration was more complicated than usual requiring multiple spatial windows with energy filters.  The SI mode that was produced did not correctly implement the spatial windows the observer wanted, and rejected most of the desired events on-board.  Some of the observing time was salvaged by real-time commanding which stopped the science run and restarted using a different SI mode.  ACIS will be contributing to a Flight Note which will describe the difficulties involved in this observation, how the incorrect ACIS commanding occured, and actions the ACIS team is taking to prevent this from happening again.

  ...  Assisted with testing of additional standard subarray for cool catalog programs.

  ...  Reviewed training document on space weather.

  ...  Reviewed FEB0419A command load.  Reviewed FEB1119 preliminary schedule.  Reviewed FEB1119 final OR list.

  ...  Reviewed FEB0419T test load.

  ...  Dropped chips from 8 ObsIDs.

  ...  Checking on automated processes associated with SACGS.