STEREO Weekly Meeting Minutes for 2007-08-21 (Week 34)


ANNOUNCEMENTS
-------------

* Starting approximately a couple of weeks from now, the start of the recorder
  playback will be 3 minutes later into the pass to give more time for the
  uplink sweep, now that the spacecraft are further away.  This will mean that
  the total recorder playback will be 3 minutes shorter.  The date of this
  change will be announced prior to its implementation.


INSTRUMENT AND SPACECRAFT STATUS
--------------------------------

* All subsystems on both spacecraft are nominal, except that the Ahead
  spececraft is currently operating on IMU #2.


DISCUSSION AND OPERATIONS CONSTRAINTS
-------------------------------------

Week 33

* Transmitter problems at station DSS 24 during the Ahead pass on day 225
  (Aug 13) caused some data gaps.

* Station DSS 15 suffered 15 minutes of downlink dropout on day 230 (Aug 18)
  during the Ahead pass, because the Turbo decoder failed to lock.  Some
  spacecraft telemetry was lost, but no instrument playback data.  Attitude
  history files could be affected.

* The SECCHI team reports that some expected special event partition data is
  missing from the playback on day 228 (Aug 16).  This is being investigated.

* The average daily downlink was 6.8 gigabits on Ahead, and 7.3 gigabits on
  Behind.

* The seventh momentum dump was performed on Ahead on day 228 (Aug 16).  The
  PLASTIC team reports no problems during the momentum dump.  It's still not
  known why particles entered the PLASTIC system during the last momentum dump
  on Behind.

* The SECCHI team uploaded new flight software to Ahead on day 229 (Aug 17).

* The SECCHI COR2 stray light offpoint was successfully performed on Behind on
  day 226 (Aug 14).  The data is still being analyzed.

Week 34

* No special events are scheduled.

Week 35

* No special events are scheduled.

Other

* The PLASTIC team is preparing a table load to go up in the next few weeks.
  The upload takes 1.5 hours, and reading the table takes another 2 hours.  The
  PLASTIC team is considering uploading the table on one day, and then either
  reading it out the next day, or letting it trickle out automatically in the
  telemetry over the next several days.  Uploading will require 2 hours of
  commanding time.  The PLASTIC team would like to schedule one pass for this
  purpose, with a contingency pass the next day.  If the load goes okay, they
  plan to go back into operation mode and pause to do a read the next day.  If
  there are problems with the load, they would suspend operations until they
  can get a clean load, which is why they want the contingency pass to be the
  next day.  The PLASTIC team is currently testing the upload at UNH to make
  sure that it goes to the right area of memory.  They expect to finish
  checking this week, and be ready to for uploading the week after next.  They
  would upload to Behind first, and then Ahead the following week.  The MOC is
  penciling in week 36 for Behind and week 37 for Ahead.  The PLASTIC team will
  send suggestions for specific dates.

* The PLASTIC team reports that they made heavy use of the stored command
  buffer, but only ended up using about 10% of the buffer.  There are no
  problems with contention with other instruments.


COORDINATED OBSERVATIONS
------------------------

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Scheduled activities for Week 34:

M Aug 20 (232)  
T Aug 21 (233)  
W Aug 22 (234)  
T Aug 23 (235)  
F Aug 24 (236)  
S Aug 25 (237)  
S Aug 26 (238)  

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Scheduled activities for Week 35:

M Aug 27 (239)  
T Aug 28 (240)  
W Aug 29 (241)  
T Aug 30 (242)  
F Aug 31 (243)  
S Sep 01 (244)  
S Sep 02 (245)  

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Scheduled activities for Week 36:

M Sep 03 (246)  
T Sep 04 (247)  
W Sep 05 (248)  
T Sep 06 (249)  
F Sep 07 (250)  
S Sep 08 (251)  
S Sep 09 (252)  

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Upcoming events:

2007:

* Oct 21 - Nov 16	JOPs 190,191,192
* Nov 02 - Nov 16	SUMER campaign
* Nov (TBD)		JOP 193
* Dec 2007-May 2008	Ulysses quadrature