ACIS Instrument Support - Monthly Progress Report for July 2025


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 JUL0725B 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.

  ...  ACIS flight software patch HKL continues to progress towards uplink. Updated EGSE software to accept revC TXing parameter dumps. Reviewed SAR to switch the TXing dump command from revB to revC. Reviewed SAR for FSW uplink requirements.  Selected optimal TXing parameters for the expected uplink date.  Reviewed CLDs for the revC TXing parameter commands. Reviewed draft CAPs for the FSW uplink and the TXing parameter update.  Uplink is scheduled for August 15 (and was successful!)

   ...  We continue to monitor threshold crossing rates.  The current set of TXing parameters were uploaded on Oct 20, 2024.

2.3 Instrument science performance

  ...  Participated in monthly ACIS operations meetings. Reviewed status of FSW patch development.

  ...  Continued daily quick-look processing of ACIS telemetry and maintained web interface to ACIS real-time data. Completed reprocessing of DSS65 data loss on June 12. Updated and tested TXings plot generation software.

  ...  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 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

  ...  Supported early planning telecon for IACHEC 2026 meeting.

  ...  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.   Updated EGSE software to recognize TXings Rev C structures.

4.2 Generation of commands for ACIS observations

  ...  Reviewed JUL0725A, JUL0725B, JUL1425A command loads; JUL1425 (x2) final OR lists; JUL1425 (x2) preliminary schedules; and JUL1425 (x2), JUL2125 (x2)  LTS OR lists.

  ...  Checking on automated processes associated with SACGS.