ACIS Instrument Support - Monthly Progress Report for March 2021

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).


2.  Engineering

2.1 Instrument hardware engineering performance

  ...  Continue to monitor long term ACIS instrument performance.  Engineering parameters continue to be stable.

  ...  The EEPROM checksum was verified in the MAR0821A load.   Will continue to run monthly.  MIT telemetry processing will automatically check the results and send out an alert if the checksum is unexpected.

  ...  Continued weekly physical audit of the ACIS Engineering Unit lab.  Supported EU power-off/on during temporary temperature excursions in the room.

2.2 Flight software maintenance

  ...  ACIS flight software patch G-H-I (improved buscrash and new deahktrip) uploaded on January 24, 2020.  First new patch set since June 2014.  No issues to date.

  ...  We continue to monitor threshold crossing rates.  The current TXINGS parameters were last updated on July 28, 2016.  Threshold crossing rates have flattened out and started decreasing, indicating the end of solar minimum. We anticipate needing to lower the trigger threshold in the next year and rates continue to drop and activity increases.

  ...  Continued work on developing and testing a QEMU ACIS processor emulator. 
 -- On-going updates to the ACIS/QEMU development documentation
 -- Resolved some tool build issues on a Linux/Mint development environment
 -- Initial round of ACIS EU/QEMU user documentation review
 
  ...  Continued team review of ACIS Flight Software User's Guide using the new version B released last April.  Completed section on parameter and window blocks.  Skipped ahead to related Appendices on window blocks and on TE mode PRAM.
  
2.3 Instrument science performance

  ...  Following a data breach on the acis web server, all services were moved to acisweb.mit.edu in January.  Completed port of ACIS daily monitoring software to Linux.  Completed migration of ACIS ops web pages to acisweb server.  The ACIS hardware documentation tree remains off line at this time.

  ...  Participated in monthly ACIS operations meetings.  Discussed thermal issues associated with upcoming low perigee in 2023 and new limits on focal plane and cold radiator temperatures.

  ...  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

  ...  Provided input and comments on ACIS article for upcoming Chandra newsletter.

  ...  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 proposed new PCA method for fitting ECS and Cas A data to calibration time dependent gain.

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

  ...  Participated in planning telecon for IACHEC virtual meeting in April/May.


4.  OCC Support

4.1 Use of MIT/ACIS EGSE at OCC

  ...  Continued support and maintenance of ACIS EGSE software and hardware at the Wayside OCC.  Checked on EGSE status.  Had to restart both Emily and Malang after firewall work broke the COG telemetry connection.

4.2 Generation of commands for ACIS observations

  ...  Started building custom SI modes for use for use with the ECS, allowing for more flexibility in specifying CCDs.  First mode is I0-I3.  

  ...  Worked with USINT on a complicated ACIS configuration and a TOO configuration

  ...  Reviewed MAR0821A and APR0521A command loads, MAR0821 and APR0521(x2) final OR lists, MAR0821, MAR0921, and APR0521(x2) preliminary schedules, and MAR2221 and APR1221 LTS OR lists.

  ...  Assigned 11 SI modes.  Dropped chips from 5 ObsIDs.

  ...  Checking on automated processes associated with SACGS.