STEREO Weekly Meeting Minutes for 2012-08-21 (Week 34) ANNOUNCEMENTS ------------- * SLE testing will be carried out during week 34, with a backup test date during week 35. Simulated data will be flowing during these tests. See below for details. INSTRUMENT and SPACECRAFT STATUS -------------------------------- * All subsystems on both spacecraft are nominal. DISCUSSION AND OPERATIONS CONSTRAINTS ------------------------------------- Week 33 (Aug 13-19) * On day 230 (Aug 17), the SWAVES science partition on Ahead reached 100% full at 1949z for 1.1 hours. * On day 227 (Aug 14), during the DSS-34 support for Behind, DCD1 failed and automatically switched over to DCD2 between 0401z and 0403z without data loss. Later, turbo decoder lock was lost intermittently beginning at 0650z through 0855z. This anomaly resulted in the loss of eight frames of SSR data. See DR #C108935 and N108306 for more information. * On day 230 (Aug 17), during the DSS-45 support for Behind, turbo decoder lock was lost intermittently beginning at 0712z through 0814z due to heavy rain. This anomaly resulted in the loss of several minutes of SSR data for each instrument. See DR #C108940 for more information. * On day 231 (Aug 18), during the DSS-34 support for Behind, turbo decoder lock was lost intermittently between 0551z and 0743z. The anomaly resulted in the loss of six frames of SSR data. See DR# N108309 for more information. * On day 232 (Aug 19), the IMPACT science partition on Behind reached 95% full at 1253z for 2.7 hours. * On day 232 (Aug 19), during the DSS-14 support for Behind, the carrier loop went out-of-lock between 232429z and 232452z causing the turbo decoder to lose lock. The downlink signal level during this time was satisfactory. The anomaly resulted in the loss of 1198 frames of SSR data. See DR# G113135 for more information. A question was asked whether the bandwidth had been opened up on this station, but this change has not been made yet. * The average daily SSR playback volume during the week was 5.5 gigabits for Ahead, and 5.0 gigabits for Behind. Week 34 (Aug 20-26) * Momentum dumps are scheduled for both spacecraft during the week. The 49th dump on Ahead occurred this morning (Aug 21), starting at 15:30 UT. The 44th dump on Behind is scheduled for tomorrow (Aug 22), starting at 18:00 UT. * Tests will be performed with the ESA command server SLE on Thursday, Aug 16, starting at 15:00 UT, during the Cebreros pass for Ahead. Simulated data will be flowing during this test. * Turbo lock was lost briefly this morning (Aug 21) at around 5:13 UT during the station 63 pass for Ahead. * Ahead has 70 meter passes every day of the week, with two passes each on Saturday and Sunday. The Monday pass, and the first passes on Saturday and Sunday, all using station 63, will be carried out at 720 kbps. There are 13 passes during the week, and overall coverage is nominal. * Behind has 70 meter passes on Wednesday, Aug 22 (D63), Thursday, Aug 23 (D63 at 720 kbps), and Saturday, Aug 25 (D14). There are 11 passes during the week, and overall coverage is nominal. An ESA Cebreros pass was added for yesterday afternoon (Aug 20). The station 34 pass on Wednesday, Aug 22 and the station 54 pass on Friday, Aug 24, will both be carried out at 240 kbps. An ESA New Norcia pass is scheduled for Friday, Aug 24. Week 35 (Aug 27 - Sep 2) * A backup time for the ESA SLE testing is scheduled for Tuesday, Aug 28, starting at 20:24 UT, using Ahead. Simulated data will be flowing during the test. * Ahead has 70 meter passes on Monday, Aug 27 (D63 at 720 kbps), Tuesday, Aug 28 (D14), Wednesday, Aug 29 (D14), and Sunday, Sep 2 (D63 at 720 kbsp, D14). There are 10 passes during the week, and overall coverage is nominal. The station 54 passes on Thursday, Aug 30, and Saturday, Sep 1, will both be carried out at 240 kbps. * Behind has 70 meter passes on Tuesday, Aug 28 (D63), and Friday, Aug 31 (D14). There are 14 passes during the week, and overall coverage is nominal. The station 24 pass on Monday, Aug 27, will be carried out at 240 kbps. ESA New Norcia passes are scheduled for Monday, Aug 27, and Sunday, Sep 2. Week 36 (Sep 3-9) * Monday, Sep 3, is Labor Day. * The 22nd SECCHI stepped calibration roll on Behind will be carried out on Tuesday, Sep 4, starting at 11:15 UT. System momentum will be about 4 N-m-s. This is the midpoint roll. Midpoint is actually the week before. * Ahead has 70 meter passes on Friday, Sep 7 (D14), Saturday, Sep 8 (D14 at 720 kbps), and Sunday, Sep 9 (D63). There are 12 passes during the week, and overall coverage is nominal. * Behind has 70 meter passes on Monday, Sep 3 (D14), Friday, Sep 7 (D63), and Saturday, Sep 8 (D63). There are 12 passes during the week, and overall coverage is nominal. The station 65 pass on Monday, Sep 3, and the station 54 pass on Sunday, Sep 9, will both be carried out at 240 kbps. An ESA New Norcia pass is scheduled for Thursday, Sep 6. Week 37 (Sep 10-16) * Ahead has 70 meter passes on Monday, Sep 10 (D63), Tuesday, Sep 11 (D63), Wednesday, Sep 12 (D14), Saturday, Sep 15 (D14), and Sunday, Sep 16 (D63). There are 10 passes during the week, and overall coverage is nominal. * Behind has 70 meters every day between Tuesday through Sunday, Sep 11-16. There are 9 passes during the week, and overall coverage is nominal. An ESA New Norcia pass is scheduled for Tuesday, Sep 11. Week 38 (Sep 17-23) * The 23rd SECCHI stepped calibration roll on Ahead will be carried out on Tuesday, Sep 18, starting at 08:40 UT. System momentum will be about 4 N-m-s. This is the aphelion roll--aphelion is actually the following week. * The Hubble space telescope will be making special observations of the planet Jupiter on Sep 20 to observe the dimming caused by a transit of Venus across the face of the Sun as seen from Jupiter. These observations will test the ability to extract information about Venus's atmosphere by observing the dimming in multiple bandpasses, and will serve to test how this procedure can be used to explore the atmospheres of exoplanets. Simultaneous observations of the Sun from SDO and STEREO Ahead are desired to monitor possible solar activity which could affect the measurements. * Ahead has 70 meter passes every day of the week, with two on Monday, Sep 17. There are 14 passes during the week, and overall coverage is nominal. An ESA New Norcia pass is scheduled for Tuesday, Sep 18. * Behind has 70 meter passes on Monday, Sep 17 (D63), Wednesday, Sep 19 (D14), Thursday, Sep 20 (D14), and Friday, Sep 21 (D63). There are 12 passes during the week, and overall coverage is nominal. The station 45 passes on Wednesday, Sep 19, and Friday, Sep 21, will be carried out at 240 kbps. ESA New Norcia passes are scheduled for Tuesday, Sep 18, and Sunday, Sep 23. Week 39 (Sep 24-30) * Ahead reaches aphelion on Sep 26. * Sep 30 marks the end of the 2nd extended mission for STEREO. * Momentum dumps are scheduled for both spacecraft during the week, with the 50th dump on Ahead scheduled for Sep 24 at 16:00 UT, and the 45th dump on Behind scheduled for Sep 25 at 15:00 UT. These dumps were scheduled a week early due to track coverage. * The second battery discharge cycling on Ahead is scheduled for the morning of Sep 26. This will be for 2 hours during a station 14 track. * Project Interface Tests (PIT) will be carried out with the Ahead spacecraft on Thursday, Sep 27 for 1.8 hours using station 24, and Sunday, Sep 30 for 3.2 hours using station 26. Realtime data will be flowing during these tests, but there will be no instrument commanding or SSR playback. * Ahead has 70 meter passes every day except Thursday, Sep 27, with two passes on Tuesday, Sep 25, and Sunday, Sep 30. The first 70 meter pass on each of those two days will be at 720 kbps. There are 11 passes during the week, and overall coverage is nominal. * Behind has 70 meter passes on Monday, Sep 24 (D14), Tuesday, Sep 25 (D63 at 720 kbps), Thursday, Sep 27 (D14, D63), and Friday, Sep 28 (D14). There are 9 passes during the week, and overall coverage is nominal. An ESA New Norcia pass is scheduled for Friday, Sep 28. Week 40 (Oct 1-7) * Ahead has 70 meter passes on Monday, Oct 1 (D14), Wednesday, Oct 3 (D63), Saturday, Oct 6 (D63), and Sunday, Oct 7 (D63). There are 11 passes during the week, and overall coverage is nominal. * Behind has 70 meter passes on Monday, Oct 1 (D14 at 720 kbps), Friday, Oct 5 (D43, D14), and Saturday, Oct 6 (D14 at 720 kbps). There are 9 passes during the week, and overall coverage is nominal. An ESA New Norcia pass is scheduled for Thursday, Oct 4. Other * A question was raised about stations 43 and 54 both being down starting in week 46. This has not yet impacted mission planning. * IMPACT reports seeing additional packets in the Behind .fin files for days 198 and 199 (Jul 16-17) which were not in the previous .ptp files. These additional packets have been reported as being possibly corrupt by the SIT team. This is under investigation. COORDINATED OBSERVATIONS ------------------------ ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Scheduled activities for Week 34: M Aug 20 (233) T Aug 21 (234) Ahead: Momentum dump, 15:30 UT W Aug 22 (235) Behind: Momentum dump, 18:00 UT T Aug 23 (236) Ahead: SLE testing with ESA, 15:00 UT F Aug 24 (237) S Aug 25 (238) S Aug 26 (239) Notes: * Simulated data will be flowing during the SLE testing ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Scheduled activities for Week 35: M Aug 27 (240) T Aug 28 (241) Ahead: SLE testing with ESA, 20:24 UT (backup date) W Aug 29 (242) T Aug 30 (243) F Aug 31 (244) S Sep 01 (245) S Sep 02 (246) Notes: * Simulated data will be flowing during the SLE testing ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Scheduled activities for Week 36: M Sep 03 (247) Labor Day T Sep 04 (248) Behind: SECCHI stepped calibration roll, 11:15 UT W Sep 05 (249) T Sep 06 (250) F Sep 07 (251) S Sep 08 (252) S Sep 09 (253) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Scheduled activities for Week 37: M Sep 10 (254) T Sep 11 (255) W Sep 12 (256) T Sep 13 (257) F Sep 14 (258) S Sep 15 (259) S Sep 16 (260) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Scheduled activities for Week 38: M Sep 17 (261) T Sep 18 (262) Ahead: SECCHI stepped calibration roll, 08:40 UT W Sep 19 (263) T Sep 20 (264) Ahead: Venus transit as seen from Jupiter F Sep 21 (265) S Sep 22 (266) S Sep 23 (267) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Scheduled activities for Week 39: M Sep 24 (268) Ahead: Momentum dump, 16:00 UT T Sep 25 (269) Behind: Momentum dump, 15:00 UT W Sep 26 (270) T Sep 27 (271) F Sep 28 (272) S Sep 29 (273) S Sep 30 (274) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Scheduled activities for Week 40: M Oct 01 (275) T Oct 02 (276) W Oct 03 (277) T Oct 04 (278) F Oct 05 (279) S Oct 06 (280) S Oct 07 (281) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Upcoming events: 2012: * Aug DAWN - Vesta departure * Nov 4 Behind: Switch downlink rate to 120 kbps * Nov 13 Total solar eclipse, south Pacific 2013: * May 3 Ahead: Switch downlink rate to 120 kbps * Dec 12 Ahead: Mercury transit 2014: * Jan 20 Behind: End use of 480 kbps on 70 m DSN subnet * Apr 21 Behind: Resume use of 480 kbps on 70 m DSN subnet * Apr 29 Behind: Mercury transit * Oct 15 Behind: End use of 480 kbps on 70 m DSN subnet 2015: * Feb DAWN - Ceres arrival * Jan 20 - Mar 28 (TBC) Behind: Spacecraft behind Sun * Mar 17 - Jul 14 (TBC) Ahead: Spacecraft behind Sun * Jul 2 Behind: Resume use of 480 kbps on 70 m DSN subnet * Aug 25 - Oct 19 (TBC) Behind: Spacecraft behind Sun * Sep 25 Behind: End use of 480 kbps on 70 m DSN subnet * Jul DAWN - End of nominal mission 2016: * Apr 3 Behind: Resume use of 480 kbps on 70 m DSN subnet 2017: * Jul 11 Ahead: Switch downlink rate to 160 kbps * Jul 22 Behind: Switch downlink rate to 160 kbps 2018: * Mar 5 Ahead: Mercury transit