STEREO Weekly Meeting Minutes for 2026-01-06 (Week 2) ANNOUNCEMENTS ------------- * None INSTRUMENT and SPACECRAFT STATUS -------------------------------- * Ahead is operating nominally. PLASTIC is in operational mode, but with a moderately higher than normal background rate. * Four years after the initial loss of communications anomaly with the Behind observatory, NASA has directed to cease periodic recovery operations with the last support on October 17, 2018. DISCUSSION AND OPERATIONS CONSTRAINTS ------------------------------------- Week 51 (Dec 15-21) * On day 350 (Dec 16), during the DSS-74 (ESA New Norcia) support, turbo decoder lock was lost briefly at 18:47, and again at 18:50 UT, due to weather. This anomaly resulted in the loss of two minutes of SSR data. The MOPs team repositioned the SSR pointers during the subsequent DSS-25 support and recovered all the affected data. * On day 353 (Dec 19), during the DSS-35 support, turbo decoder lock was lost intermittently from 16:16 through 16:25 UT, due to weather. This anomaly resulted in the loss of 9096 frames of SSR data. The MOPs team repositioned the SSR pointers during the support and recovered all the affected data. See DR #C118905 for more information. * On day 355 (Dec 21), during the DSS-24 support, the uplink and downlink were lost between 12:50 and 12:56 UT, due to an antenna brake problem. This anomaly resulted in the loss of six minutes of realtime telemetry, commanding, 2-way tracking, and 3840 frames of SSR data. The MOPs team repositioned the SSR pointers during the track and recovered all the affected data. See DR #G125740 for more information. * The average daily science data return for Ahead was 7.7 Gbits during this week. Week 52 (Dec 22-28) * On day 358 (Dec 24), during the DSS-55 support, turbo decoder lock was lost briefly at 08:19 UT. This anomaly resulted in the loss of three frames of SSR data. The MOPs team repositioned the SSR pointers during the support and recovered all the affected data. * On day 360 (Dec 26), during the DSS-55 support, the transmitter was declared red, due to a hardware problem. This anomaly resulted in the loss of 3.3 hours of real-time commanding and 2-way tracking data. See DR #M118631 for more information. * On day 361 (Dec 27), during the DSS-65 support, commanding was delayed by 12 minutes until 03:56 UT, due to command modulation activating late. This anomaly resulted in the loss of 12 minutes of commanding. See DR #M118636 for more information. * On day 359 (Dec 25), the SECCHI instrument reset at 05:00:31 UT. The SECCHI team reconfigured the instrument to operational mode by 06:03 UT. This was the 89th reset of the SECCHI instrument on the Ahead observatory. * The average daily science data return for Ahead was 8.6 Gbits during this week. Week 1 (Dec 29 - Jan 4) * On day 364 (Dec 30), the 182nd momentum dump was executed successfully at 13:30 UT, which imparted an estimated delta V of 0.059 m/sec. This was the 101st momentum dump conducted without gyro use. After thruster operations completed, there was a 0.8 degree of roll angle error. Fine pointing stabilized 3.4 minutes after completion of the momentum dump. * On day 001 (Jan 1), during the DSS-34 support, turbo decoder lock was lost briefly at 17:47 UT. This anomaly resulted in the loss of five frames of SSR data. The MOPs team repositioned the SSR pointers during the support and recovered all the affected data. * On day 004 (Jan 4), during the DSS-55 support, turbo decoder lock was lost briefly at 05:31 UT. This anomaly resulted in the loss of eight frames of SSR data. The MOPs team repositioned the SSR pointers during the support and recovered all the affected data. * The average daily science data return for Ahead was 8.0 Gbits during this week. Week 2 (Jan 5-11) * Ahead has ten passes during the week, all at 720 kbps, and overall coverage is nominal. Week 3 (Jan 12-18) * Ahead has thirteen passes during the week, all at 720 kbps, and overall coverage is nominal. Week 4 (Jan 19-25) * Ahead has fourteen passes during the week, all at 720 kbps, and overall coverage is nominal. Week 5 (Jan 26 - Feb 1) * Ahead has fifteen passes during the week, all at 720 kbps, and overall coverage is nominal. Week 6 (Feb 2-8) * Ahead has fifteen passes during the week, all at 720 kbps, and overall coverage is nominal. Week 7 (Feb 9-15) * Ahead has sixteen passes during the week, all at 720 kbps, and overall coverage is nominal. * The 183rd momentum dump is scheduled for Wednesday, February 11th, at 17:45 UT. * The 25th Solar Orbiter remote sensing window begins Thursday, February 12th. Other * Dan Wilson announced that, after discussion with Dave Grant, the annual spacecraft health assessment typically conducted in February will be scaled back this year due to reduced funding levels. Typically during the health assessment the engineers would retrieve and plot a year's worth of data regarding subsystem operations and compare them to plots from the previous year(s). He has instructed his subsystem leads to scale back the assessment in certain areas where previous reviews have consistently noted no change (e.g., IEM, flight software and autonomy, and thermal). This means we be more heavily reliant on the monitoring and regular reviews conducted by the MOC. Dan will still produce a reduced set of slides and publish them on the data server. Terry Kucera asked that the instrument teams continue to provide updates as to the status of their instruments. Dan will send an email soon with a request for slides, with an expected due date around mid-February. COORDINATED OBSERVATIONS ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Scheduled activities for Week 02: M Jan 05 (005) T Jan 06 (006) W Jan 07 (007) T Jan 08 (008) F Jan 09 (009) S Jan 10 (010) S Jan 11 (011) Notes: * NASA Moon-to-Mars Space Weather campaign, Dec 29 - Jan 21 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Scheduled activities for Week 03: M Jan 12 (012) T Jan 13 (013) W Jan 14 (014) T Jan 15 (015) F Jan 16 (016) S Jan 17 (017) S Jan 18 (018) Notes: * NASA Moon-to-Mars Space Weather campaign, Dec 29 - Jan 21 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Scheduled activities for Week 04: M Jan 19 (019) T Jan 20 (020) W Jan 21 (021) NASA M2M SW Campaign Ends T Jan 22 (022) F Jan 23 (023) S Jan 24 (024) S Jan 25 (025) Notes: * NASA Moon-to-Mars Space Weather campaign, Dec 29 - Jan 21 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Scheduled activities for Week 05: M Jan 26 (026) T Jan 27 (027) W Jan 28 (028) T Jan 29 (029) F Jan 30 (030) S Jan 31 (031) S Feb 01 (032) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Scheduled activities for Week 06: M Feb 02 (033) T Feb 03 (034) W Feb 04 (035) T Feb 05 (036) F Feb 06 (037) S Feb 07 (038) S Feb 08 (039) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Scheduled activities for Week 07: M Feb 09 (040) T Feb 10 (041) W Feb 11 (042) Ahead: Momentum dump, 17:45 UT T Feb 12 (043) SolO RSW 25 begins F Feb 13 (044) S Feb 14 (045) S Feb 15 (046) Notes: * Solar Orbiter Remote Sensing Window 25, Feb 12-27 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Upcoming events: 2026: * Feb 28-Mar 10 Solar Orbiter Remote Sensing Window 26 * Mar 8-16 Parker Solar Probe perihelion pass * Mar 29-Apr 3 Solar Orbiter Remote Sensing Window 27 * Jun 4-12 Parker Solar Probe perihelion pass * Aug 4-14 Solar Orbiter Remote Sensing Window 28 * Aug 15-25 Solar Orbiter Remote Sensing Window 29 * Sep 1-9 Parker Solar Probe perihelion pass * Sep 11-21 Solar Orbiter Remote Sensing Window 30 * Nov 28-Dec 6 Parker Solar Probe perihelion pass * Dec 24 Solar Orbiter Venus flyby 2028: * Mar 18 Solar Orbiter Venus flyby 2029: * Jun 10 Solar Orbiter Venus flyby * Jun 30 Ahead: Mercury transit 2030: * Sep 3 Solar Orbiter Venus flyby ######################################################################## Access the STEREO-SCI-OPS Home Page and Archives: http://listserv.jhuapl.edu/scripts/wa.exe?A0=STEREO-SCI-OPS Unsubscribe from the STEREO-SCI-OPS List: http://listserv.jhuapl.edu/scripts/wa.exe?TICKET=NzM5NjAzIHNoYWVsYS5pLmpvbmVzbWVjaG9sc2t5QE5BU0EuR09WIFNURVJFTy1TQ0ktT1BTIGvQ3MCEIhMC&c=SIGNOFF ########################################################################