ACE Weekly 09/13/2011 - 09/19/2011 The SWICS instrument trigger anomaly is still being investigated. The SWICS voltages have been turned on, except the microchannel plate, which allows limited science data to be collected and excludes the time-of-flight system. All other ACE spacecraft subsystems are performing as expected. ======================================================================== Orbit/Attitude: No maneuvers were completed this week. The next attitude maneuver is scheduled for Wednesday 09/21/2011. ======================================================================= OCRs: DOY 258 (09/15/2011) 1338-1410z SWICS MOCR 338 SWICS voltages were turned on with the SWICS ramp-up procedure (swx_rmp.proc). MCP voltage commands were skipped. DOY 259 (09/16/2011) 1348-1407z SWICS MOCR 338 SWICS PAPS voltages increased to 22kV with procedure, swx_hv_adj.proc. Trigger Mode commanded to Energy only. DOY 262 (09/19/2011) 1409-1425z & 1440-1449z SWICS MOCR 338 SWICS PAPS voltages increased to 26.1kV with procedure, swx_hv_adj.proc. Trigger Mode commanded to Energy only. Summary from the SWICS Instrument Team (edited) SWICS has been configured in an ESA-energy only mode, bypassing the TOF system entirely. Our aim is to determine the quality of the data that comes out in this mode of operation. To do this, we ramped up SWICS post-acceleration voltage to an operational level (25 kV), while leaving the MCPs off. We also configured it to accept only events which trigger the energy detector and started the electrostatic analyzer stepping. Just following this change, we saw rate increases in the main and auxiliary channel solid state detector rates as a function of E/q, consistent with expected solar wind signatures. SWICS will be in a mode which allows partial science data to be collected. We will likely wait until we have 1-2 days of good data collected in this mode and on the ground before proceeding with further commanding. MCP=MicroChannel Plate ESA=ElectroStatic Analyzer TOF=Time-Of-Flight PAPS=Post Acceleration Power Supply ======================================================================== Activities: Data Capture: 95.59% DOY 254-261 2011 258-06:09:36 - 258-13:30:18 loss 07:20:43 258-13:30:19 - 258-13:32:24 loss 00:02:06 ADC covers 260-09:21:06 - 260-09:21:36 loss 00:00:31 SSR Failover 261-07:34:09 - 261-07:35:29 loss 00:01:21 didn't dump For the first week, we're doing better than our expected 7% data loss. FDF Product Server Update FDF has created accounts for the FOT on the OIONet server (bonham), but the FDF analysts are configuring the RIONet server (stewart). The bonham and stewart servers are not being mirrored. On Monday, FDF created one FOT account for stewart. MOCR 338 requested a firewall update to allow the MMOC to connect to the new FDF product server (stewart). This request came late on a Friday afternoon (9/2/2011) and was implemented immediately to provide feedback to FDF. The firewall change was implemented on an old rule-set and rules implemented since August were lost. This included the firewall rule to allow the VAFB SCD to connect to the MMOC for forwarding RTSW data to NOAA SWPC. This was resolved on Thursday 09/15/2011. The NICT (Japan) antenna which tracks ACE for NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center was scheduled to be down Tuesday-Thursday (DOY 256-258 0000-0500z). On DOY 256, AFSCN was not scheduled. On DOY 257, MMOC firewall problems prevented data flow. On DOY 258, AFSCN was scheduled and data successfully flowed through the MMOC, but the NICT antenna was back in operations at this point. SWEPAM instrument calibration is performed every Monday. With two passes scheduled for Monday 09/19/2011, the automation system would send the calibration commands during each pass. The instrument team was notified of this. They replied that manual intervention was not required to avoid the second calibration cycle. Background information on data capture ACE often receives 100% data capture. The following provides some background information. The spacecraft generates an 868 byte frame once a second (996 bytes with R/S encoding). This corresponds to 500.6MB per week. The spacecraft data generation is constant. ACE needs ~19 hours per week to dump the data, of which 2 of those hours (cumulative per week) are for configuring the spacecraft before and after the data playback. ACE is allocated 24.5 hours per week of passes, plus an additional 3 hours of range only passes. The 5.5 extra hours are sufficient to make up for antenna problems and to redump gaps. During the 3 weeks of the GRAIL launch, ACE antenna time has been 17.8, 18.3 and 16.7 hours. Avoiding recording during passes saved ~1.5 hours per week. The following provides the percentage of data allocated to the ACE instruments. This is only a measure of the the raw data generation (including instrument housekeeping) and not a measure of science value. S3DPU data is split among SEPICA, SWICS and SWIMS. On 4/20/2011, SEPICA was powered off and the data in that region is not of value. Instrument per frame per week percentage ---------- --------- -------- ---------- MAG 37 bytes 12.3 MB 4.3% EPAM 21 bytes 12.1 MB 2.4% CRIS 57 bytes 32.9 MB 6.6% SIS 249 bytes 143.6 MB 28.7% SWEPAM-I 68 bytes 39.2 MB 7.8% SWEPAM-E 68 bytes 39.2 MB 7.8% ULEIS 125 bytes 72.1 MB 14.4% S3DPU 121 bytes 69.8 MB 13.9% SEPICA 22 bytes 12.7 MB 2.5% SWICS 35 bytes 20.2 MB 4.0% SWIMS 25 bytes 14.4 MB 2.9% Hskp+header 40 bytes 23.1 MB 4.6% ======================================================================== Anomalies: DOY 257 09/14/2011 S-ACE-0542 G11-0052 SSR cfgmon problems The ITOS configuration monitors needed to be updated for the new SSR procedures. The configuration monitors were updated with MOCR 340, but the old version of the configuration monitor was still running on the following pass. Impact: The final state-of-health checks and 5 minutes of SSR redumps were not performed. Manual intervention to clean up the ITOS procedures.