STEREO Weekly Meeting Minutes for 2008-08-19 (Week 34) ANNOUNCEMENTS ------------- * The instrument POC equipment is being moved over the next few weeks. More information is found below. 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 * On day 227 (Aug 14) PLASTIC successfully tested operations on the backup modem on both Ahead and Behind. * The average daily downlink was 7.2 gigabits on Ahead and 7.0 gigabits on Behind. * A LET patch was performed on Behind last week, and so far the team is happy with the results. This is expected to be the last in a series of LET patches that have been applied recently. They would like to collect more data on Behind, and then expect to apply the same patches to Ahead in one fell swoop. Week 34 * No unusual activities planned. Week 35 * Behind will reach aphelion on day 241 (Aug 28), at 20:00 UT. The SECCHI aphelion stepped calibration roll is scheduled on Behind on day 239 (Aug 26) at 20:15 UT. * SECCHI will be testing their POC equipment after the move into the MOC room on Friday, Aug 29. IMPACT may also be testing their POC equipment that day. SWAVES will also be doing their testing next week. PLASTIC expects to be doing their testing sometime in the next couple of months. * The PLASTIC POC has been moved, and about half of the IMPACT equipment. The SECCHI equipment will be moved later this week, and the SWAVES equipment will be moved next week. * The instrument POCs will be brought up on the new DMZ, with new IP addresses. The instrument teams will need to test to make sure they still have access to their POCs from their institutions. Only the instrument POC addresses are changing--the workstations used for serving the data will not change. Other * The change to 480 kbps is scheduled for Sep 15 on Behind, and Oct 13 on Ahead. MOps is watching the signal-to-noise ratio, which is staying as predicted. Some decline in S/N is seen for passes with low elevation. No frames have been lost yet. * APL is still examining the draft update to the science operations plan for the extended mission. They expect to have a response prepared within the next week or two. It may be necessary to switch to 6 hour passes earlier than expected, i.e. at a rate of 360 kbps, partially because of track centering slippage issues. More details will be in the response APL is preparing. * The SSC reports that ACE data is now being overplotted onto the solar wind browse plots. * The instrument teams have looked at their data, and see nothing to explain the unusual number of SEUs which have been seen recently on Ahead. One possible explanation is the increased number of galactic cosmic rays at solar minimum. * SWAVES expects to do a software load in the next few weeks. COORDINATED OBSERVATIONS ------------------------ ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Scheduled activities for Week 34: M Aug 18 (231) T Aug 19 (232) W Aug 20 (233) T Aug 21 (234) F Aug 22 (235) S Aug 23 (236) S Aug 24 (237) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Scheduled activities for Week 35: M Aug 25 (238) T Aug 26 (239) Behind: SECCHI stepped calibration roll 20:15 UT W Aug 27 (240) T Aug 28 (241) F Aug 29 (242) S Aug 30 (243) S Aug 31 (244) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Scheduled activities for Week 36: M Sep 01 (245) T Sep 02 (246) W Sep 03 (247) T Sep 04 (248) F Sep 05 (249) S Sep 06 (250) S Sep 07 (251) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Scheduled activities for Week 37: M Sep 08 (252) T Sep 09 (253) W Sep 10 (254) T Sep 11 (255) F Sep 12 (256) S Sep 13 (257) S Sep 14 (258) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Upcoming events: 2008: SECCHI Stepped calibration rolls Ahead: Sep 23, Dec 16 Behind: Aug 26, Dec 2 ICAL-001: Sep 1-5, Oct 6-10, Nov 3-7, Dec 1-5 * Sep 15 Behind: Switch downlink rate to 480 kbps * Oct 6 Messenger - Mercury fly-by * Oct 13 Ahead: Switch downlink rate to 480 kbps * Oct 16,28 JOP 80, EIT shutterless * Nov 1-Dec 15 SUMER campaign (may be cancelled) 2009: ICAL-001: Jan 5-9 SECCHI Stepped calibration rolls Ahead: Mar 10, Jun 9, Sep 2, Nov 24 Behind: Mar 10, Jun 16, Sep 22, Dec 22 * Jan 15,22 JOP 80, EIT shutterless * May 18 Ahead: Switch downlink rate to 360 kbps * Jun 8 Behind: Switch downlink rate to 360 kbps * Aug 4 Both: Increase track duration from 4 to 5 hours * Aug 10 Ahead: Switch downlink rate to 160 kbps * Aug 31 Behind: Switch downlink rate to 160 kbps * Sep 10 Ahead at L4 Lagrange point * Sep 29 Messenger - Mercury fly-by * Oct 25 Behind at L5 Lagrange point