ACIS Instrument Support - Monthly Progress Report for September 2024


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).

  ...  SPIE proceedings paper has been published:  Grant+ 2024, "The Advanced CCD Imaging Spectrometer on the Chandra X-ray Observatory: Twenty five years of on-orbit operations", Proc SPIE 13093, 130931E

  ...  Submitted abstract to "25 Years of Science with Chandra" symposium on ACIS instrument team operations.

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 SEP0924A 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.  Weekly audits were nominal. 

2.2 Flight software maintenance

  ...  ACIS flight software patch H-J-K uploaded on September 19, 2023.  First new patch set since August 2022.  No issues to date.

  ...  Created libraries of ACIS patch loads, simplifying EU and QEMU testing.

  ...  We continue to monitor threshold crossing rates which have recently flattened out. The current set of TXing parameters were uploaded on May 7, 2024.

  ...  In anticipation of further decreases in the threshold crossing rate, a set of six new TXing parameter update commands were created, tested, and installed in the ODB.

2.3 Instrument science performance

  ...  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.  Updated script that annotates DOT and TLR for bias-only observing runs.


3.  CXC Support

3.1 Provide user support

  ...  Prepared graphic of TXings rate limit updates for the ACIS CUC presentation.

  ...  ACIS memo listing calibration ObsIDs and observation characteristics (ACIS Memo #165) will no longer be updated.  Functionality is replaced by web page (http://acisweb.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 response discussion group.  Discussed gain issues in recent deep galaxy cluster observations.

  ...  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 Wayside OCC.  Restarted both EGSE machines routinely.  Informed SysHelp of configuration problem with pogow ssh logins.

4.2 Generation of commands for ACIS observations

  ...  Continued planning for cycle 26 global SI mode assignment.  Assigned SI modes for Chandra Legacy Program targets.

  ...  Answered USINT question about optional CCDs.

  ...  Started testing of ACIS command generation and downlink monitoring tools with CXC DS10.13.

  ...  Reviewed OCT0724 preliminary schedule and final OR list.
 
  ...  Checking on automated processes associated with SACGS.