STEREO Weekly Meeting Minutes for 2008-12-16 (Week 51) ANNOUNCEMENTS ------------- * None INSTRUMENT AND SPACECRAFT STATUS -------------------------------- * All subsystems on both spacecraft are nominal, except that the Ahead spacecraft is currently operating on IMU #2. DISCUSSION AND OPERATIONS CONSTRAINTS ------------------------------------- Week 50 * The station 14 transmitter was red for the Ahead track on day 344 (Dec 9). Data were downlinked; however, the SSR pointers were not reset. Another track was added nine hours to move the pointers, but about six hours of SECCHI data were lost. * The average daily downlink was 6.2 gigabits on Ahead, and 7.0 gigabits on Behind. * On day 345 (Dec 10), the station 65 transmitter was limited to 6.3 kW, which was insufficient to close the uplink. SSR data were down downlinked during the pass, but there was no commanding or tracking data. DSN reports that the limitation on station 65 has no been cleared. * On day 348 (Dec 13), realtime monitor data was recieved two hours late due to network problems. Week 51 * The 18th momentum dump is scheduled for Ahead tomorrow on day 352 (Dec 17) at 13:00 UT. * The midpoint stepped calibration roll on Behind is occurred this morning, day 351 (Dec 16) at 03:50 UT. All indications so far are that the roll occured as planned. Week 52 * A quiet week is scheduled because of the Christmas holiday on Thursday. APL will be closed for the holidays on both Thursday and Friday, so the instrument teams should arrange to send any necessary commands up before then. Week 01 * A leap second will be added to the spacecraft at the end of day 366 (Dec 31). The instrument teams will see this as a repeat of the second 23:59:59 UT. There will be no tracks during the year rollover. The STEREO software in SolarSoft has been prepared for the upcoming leap second. Week 02 * HGA calibrations are scheduled for both spacecraft on Jan 7, at 15:30 for Ahead and 18:00 for Behind. This calibration will take 1 to 1.5 hours. The spacecraft will roll by +/- 1 degree during the calibration, in 1/2 degree steps. Other * IMPACT plans to perform some SWEA testing during the first half of January. They will raise the heater settings to explore some possible temperature dependence in the SWEA efficiency. This testing will occur on both spacecraft. The testing is expected to take 10 days to complete, with about 48 hours between each temperature adjustment. * Station 14 currently has some limitations which may affect usage for STEREO. These limitations should be cleared up by the end of the week. STEREO is not currently scheduled to use station 14. * Upgraded software to fix the range tracking data problem has been installed at Goldstone, and delivered to Madrid and Canberra. It is expected that the software will be installed in the latter stations by the end of the week. In the meantime, the workaround is in place to fix the problem. * The STEREO public website at stereo.gsfc.nasa.gov will down tonight (Dec 16) because of electrical work. The SSC website at stereo-ssc.nascom.nasa.gov will remain up. * The Herschel sounding rocket is scheduled for launch January 23. Their plans mention the use of SECCHI data. Simon Plunkett will look into the question of whether any special observations are requested. * The two STEREO spacecraft will be at exactly 90 degree separation on Jan 24. * The Dawn spacecraft will have a fly-by of Mars on February 17. * The IMPACT data system was down for a few days last week. It is back up again, and no data were lost. COORDINATED OBSERVATIONS ------------------------ ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Scheduled activities for Week 51: M Dec 15 (350) T Dec 16 (351) Behind: SECCHI stepped calibration roll, 03:50 W Dec 17 (352) Ahead: Momentum dump, 13:00 UT T Dec 18 (353) F Dec 19 (354) S Dec 20 (355) S Dec 21 (356) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Scheduled activities for Week 52: M Dec 22 (357) T Dec 23 (358) W Dec 24 (359) T Dec 25 (360) F Dec 26 (361) S Dec 27 (362) S Dec 28 (363) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Scheduled activities for Week 01: M Dec 29 (364) T Dec 30 (365) W Dec 31 (366) Leap second added at end of day T Jan 01 (001) F Jan 02 (002) S Jan 03 (003) S Jan 04 (004) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Scheduled activities for Week 02: M Jan 05 (005) T Jan 06 (006) W Jan 07 (007) HGA calibration, Ahead: 15:30 UT, Behind: 18:00 UT T Jan 08 (008) F Jan 09 (009) S Jan 10 (010) S Jan 11 (011) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Upcoming events: 2009: ICAL-001: Jan 5-9, Jan 26-30, Mar 2-6, Apr 6-10, May 11-22, Jun 15-19 SECCHI Stepped calibration rolls Ahead: Mar 10, Jun 9, Sep 2, Nov 24 Behind: Mar 10, Jun 16, Sep 22, Dec 22 * Jan TBD Planned network outage at APL * Jan 15,22 JOP 80, EIT shutterless * Jan 23 ICAL14, Herschel sounding rocket launch * Feb 17 DAWN - Mars fly-by * Apr 16,23 JOP 80, EIT shutterless * Apr Two week SUMER campaign (TBC) * May 18 Ahead: Switch downlink rate to 360 kbps * Jun 1-Jul 5 Sunrise 5-day balloon flight http://star.mpae.gwdg.de/Sunrise/project/publicat/SPIE_2004.pdf * Jun 8 Behind: Switch downlink rate to 360 kbps * Jul 22 Total solar eclipse http://eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov/SEmono/TSE2009/TSE2009.html * Aug 4 Both: Increase track duration from 4 to 5 hours * Aug 10 Ahead: Switch downlink rate to 240 kbps * Aug 31 Behind: Switch downlink rate to 240 kbps * Sep 10 Ahead at L4 Lagrange point * Sep 29 Messenger - Mercury fly-by * Oct 25 Behind at L5 Lagrange point * Nov 1-Dec 15 SUMER campaign (TBC) * Dec Behind: Switch downlink rate to 160 kbps