ACIS Instrument Support - Monthly Progress Report for January 2023

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 trending over the past 60 days is nominal.

  ...  The EEPROM checksum was verified in the JAN0923A loads. 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.  In response to MKI network changes and the loss of a thermal monitor, the ACIS engineering unit was taken off line in December.  It has been returned to service, with additional security measures and an OS update to the host computer. This required modifying the DMA board device driver to work with the newer kernal version. Updated procedures for SI mode testing have been tested and documentation will be released shortly.

2.2 Flight software maintenance

  ...  Completed final reviews, validation, and certification tests for ACIS flight software patch H-J-K.  The final version of the ECO was released and the patch load is ready for procedure development. This patch load includes three new standard patches and an update to an existing patch, which fix bugs and improves the ACIS response to unexpected shutdowns and BEP crashes. 

  ...  Closed Software Problem Reports 157, 159, 160, and 161 which are addressed by the H-J-K patches.

  ...  ACIS flight software patch G-I-J (improved TXings) uploaded on August 11, 2022.  First new patch set since January 2020.  No issues to date.

  ...  We continue to monitor threshold crossing rates. Threshold crossing rates have begun dropping again and a parameter update is planned for February.  The last parameter update was September 12, 2022.


2.3 Instrument science performance

  ...  Participated in monthly ACIS operations meeting.  Discussed updating TXING parameters, planning for the next FSW patch, status of MKI network access and the Engineering Unit.

  ...  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

  ...  Provided toy model simulations of X-rays traveling through the ACIS OBF plus a contamination layer to explore PSF degradation due to contamination.  No evidence of beam spreading in the initial simulation.  Passed on Topas/Geant4 parameters to cal team for further exploration.

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

  ...  Participated in planning telecon for the next in-person IACHEC meeting in April.

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.  Restarted both EGSE machines routinely.

  ...  Supported successful BUOCC demo.

4.2 Generation of commands for ACIS observations

  ...  Continued training of additional MIT ACIS team member on ACIS ops on-duty tasks.  Getting set up with accounts and email lists.  Nearing completion on ACIS SI mode assignment and nominal load reviews.  Started on off-nominal load reviews, TOOs, and SI mode creation.  Briefed on space weather monitoring.

  ...  Created, tested and installed a new set of ACIS TXING parameter update commands for future updates.  

  ...  TXING parameter updates revealed a bug in the ACIS tables editing script.  Documentation updated to avoid bug in the future.

  ...  Reviewed JAN0923A command load; JAN0923(x2) final OR lists; JAN0923(x2) preliminary schedules; and JAN2323 and JAN1623 LTS OR lists.

  ...  Assigned 19 SI modes. Dropped chips from 10 ObsIDs.

  ...  Checking on automated processes associated with SACGS.