CXC Manager’s Status Report
For the period Oct 05 – Mar 06
Chandra Users’ Committee Meeting
Roger Brissenden
5 April 2006
Topics
• Program Level Status
– Program Management
– Spacecraft
– Mission Planning
–
–
–
–
Science Instruments and Calibration
OCC
Data Processing
CXCDS
– CDO
– Education and Outreach
• Mission Metrics
• Chandra Grant Awards
5 April 2006
CXC Status Report/CUC
Page 2
Program Level Status
• Program Management
– Budget: NASA required a 5% reduction to the FY06 CXC budget in
February and steps are being taken to accommodate this mid-year. Plans
are not final, but steps will include some reduction to GO funds (aim is to
minimize this), freezing open/future-attrition positions and moving staff as
needed to fill required functions, and modifying phasing of funds to
subcontractors. Further reductions in FY07 would impact CXC functions.
– Staffing: The Flight team has undergone a series of staff changes
beginning with the retirement of the FOT manager, Leon McKendrick and
the promotion of Dan Shropshire to the position. New Ground Team and
Facilities Team leads are also being appointed through internal hiring. We
are confident in the new FOT and OCC team organization and staffing.
– Facilities: The CXC Data System group moved (Dec 05) from offices in
Harvard Square to new leased space at Cambridge Discovery Park, about
1.5 miles northwest of 60 Garden Street, that also houses other SAO units.
The move was accomplished smoothly, with no disruption to operations.
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CXC Status Report/CUC
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CXC Organization
MSFC Space Systems Programs & Projects Office
Hefner
Chandra X-ray Center Program Office
Tananbaum
Canizares (MIT)
Brissenden
Education & Outreach
Lestition
Director's Office
Wilkes
Grants Award Section
Sozanski
Flight Operations Team
Shropshire
Online Operations
Mission Planning & Testing
Spacecraft Engineering
Flight Software
Factory Support Team
5 April 2006
OCC Operations
Eagan
Science
Tananbaum
Facility Systems Team
Integration & Ground
S/W Maintenance
Ground Ops Team
Ops. Science Support
Calibration
Mission Planning
Sci. Data Sys. Planning
IPI Teams
CXC Status Report/CUC
Science Data System
Fabbiano
Systems Engineering
Holmes
Hardware & Systems
Software Development
Test
Archive Operations
Data Processing Operations
Page 4
Flight Operations Team Staff Changes
Christine Harbison
(Operations Manager,
Flight Software) left
the program
Craig Mahon assumed
Acting Operations
Manager duties in
January 2006
Eric Page assumed
Flight Software
responsibilities in
January 2006
Rich Myers assumed
SMF management
duties in January
2006
Brad Bissell
completed transition
from MP to Eng
Sabina Bucher
transitioning to
become MP Manager
Ken Gage
transitioning to
become Propulsion /
PCAD engineer
Changes since last
Quarterly in Blue
NGST Program Manger
D. Shropshire
Contracts: M.
Leonard
Business: G.
Smith-Lee
NGST Factory
POC
P. Pohlen
J. Wider
K. Patrick
Etc.
Mission Planning
Manager
S. Bucher
Administrative
Assistant
J. Park
Operations
Manager (Acting)
C. Mahon
Engineering
Manager
P. Viens
Senior Mission
Planner
K. Marsh
Ops Controller
D. Balke
Senior Ops
Controller
D. Wicker
EPS / Thermal
R. Giordano
Senior Engineer
PCAD / Prop
E. Martin
Mission Planner /
Ops Controller
B. Williams
Ops Controller
TBD
Cmd Controller
F. Schackart
CCDM / Mech /
Ops Controller
B. Bissell
CCDM / Mech /
SMF
R. Myers
PCAD / Prop
K. Gage
EPS / Thermal
T. Trinh
FOT Software
Manager
TBD
Ground Software
TBD
DelMar
Mission Planner
M. Pendexter
Configuration
Manager / QA
J. Rose
5 April 2006
Cmd Controller
J. Wellington
Cmd Controller
S. Stewart
Cmd Controller
J. Price
CXC Status Report/CUC
Flight Software
E. Page
Page 5
Program Level Status
• Spacecraft
– Continues to operate extremely well overall
– Nominal passage through winter 2006 eclipses and lunar eclipse on
11/1/05
– Patched Flight Software to raise EPHIN E1300 channel high-radiation
threshold
– Patched On-Board Computer to eliminate SIM move to mid-point during
SCS107, to reduce temperature spikes on translation motor
– Completed final build and reviews of recompiled Flight Software;
preparing to enter test phase
– ACA dark current calibrations 11/12/05, 3/5/06
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Program Level Status
•
Spacecraft (con’t): Anomalies
–
–
•
On 1/12/06, a command overlap condition was identified between the JAN1106A
mission loads and the autonomous eclipse exit commanding (SCS 33) that resulted
in the Sun Position Monitor being enabled outside the Fine Sun Sensor’s field of
view (unexpected state). We disabled the monitor via the appropriate ground
commands. Additional Mission Planning Guidelines and load review tool updates
are in work to prevent future occurrences.
A brief amount of anomalous telemetry was seen (15 Dec) in the secondary
engineering portion of the HRC telemetry stream. The anomalous data had no
operational impact, and no corruption of the x-ray event data was observed. The
event is under investigation.
Mission Planning
–
–
SCS107 ran once (21 Mar) due to high radiation event, requiring replan
5 load interrupt TOOs:
Date
Target
Days
10/25/05
GRB051022
1
12/22/05
GRB051221
1
01/04/06
GRB051221 (followup)
8
01/11/06
GRB060108
3
03/29/06
SGR 1900+14
3
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CXC Status Report/CUC
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Program Level Status
• EPHIN
– Spacecraft temperatures have increased due to degradation of the
metalized Mylar insulation
– Keeping the EPHIN (Electron Proton Helium Instrument) particle detector
cool caused substantial constraints on spacecraft attitudes, restricted
observation durations and made mission planning very difficult.
– Investigation showed that EPHIN can operate at up to 120F without
damage. The Flight Director Board authorized increasing the allowed
EPHIN temperature from 96F to 110F, and the trigger threshold of one of
the electron detection channels (E1300) by a factor of two.
– E1300 threshold increase will decrease false SCS107 triggers due to
puffed-up radiation belts
– Temperature increase will increase number of 27-volt power supply
dropouts, but this is considered not harmful, and is acceptable to the
engineering team and the EPHIN principal investigator
– These changes have resulted in more flexible mission planning
5 April 2006
CXC Status Report/CUC
Page 8
Program Level Status
• Science Instruments
– Instruments are operating extremely well
– The HRC Engineering (‘proof of concept’) unit will be integrated with the
spacecraft simulator (the Avionics and Software Validation Test set) to
allow testing new or modified HRC on-orbit procedures directly with the
simulator.
• OCC
– The OCC ground system was successfully migrated from Silicon Graphics
to Linux-based computers 29 Nov. Operations continued seamlessly, with
no disruption.
– Telex/RTS was selected to replace the voice communications system;
delivery expected May 06.
5 April 2006
CXC Status Report/CUC
Page 9
Program Level Status
• Data Processing
– Automatic processing is current; median data delivery time 31.1
hours from end of observation to delivery to user
– Complete data reprocessing (Repro 3) began 15 Feb; incorporates
most recent algorithms and calibrations; 8 months of data (starting
Jan 05) reprocessed to date
• CXC Data System Major Releases
Version
DS 7.6.4
CIAO 3.3
Main contents
Multi-obi V&V fix; obs completion policy
Science tools & library upgrades; new tools; cycle 8
proposal tools
DS 7.6.5
Dec05 Cycle 8 proposal s/w; charge time update
DS 7.6.6
Jan06
Implement new observ policy in archive
DS 7.6.7
Feb06
Repro 3 s/w; telem & aspect enhancements
Also: 6 data system patches (Nov, Dec [2], Jan, Feb, Mar) – s/w fixes &
updates
5 April 2006
Date
Nov05
Nov05
CXC Status Report/CUC
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Program Level Status
• Calibration Database (CalDB) Releases
2 releases: v. 3.2.0 (21 Nov), v. 3.2.1 (15 Dec) incorporate updates in 10 calibration
product areas
• GO and Fellows Programs
–
–
–
Cycle 8 Call for Proposals was issued 16 Dec; proposal deadline was 15
March
726 proposals were received; process went smoothly
9th Chandra Fellows cycle: Record 88 applications received (accepted
electronically, by 9 Nov); peer review 18 Jan, 5 Fellows selected (from
Spain, U.S., Italy, Japan; to Rutgers, Inst. Adv. Study, CfA, Michigan,
Penn State)
• Education and Public Outreach
–
–
–
–
13 press activities
1 press conference & release at January AAS, with 6 images
8 press releases, 5 image releases
32 major print articles, incl. 2 in USA Today; 269 major web articles;
items on broadcast news (NRP, Voice of America)
5 April 2006
CXC Status Report/CUC
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Mission Metrics
MUPS Fuel Usage
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Mission Metrics
Thruster Warm Starts
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Mission Metrics
Scheduled Observing Efficiency
Scheduled Observations
Month
Seconds in month (ks)
Scheduled Observing Time (ks)
Scheduled Observing Efficiency
Mar-05
2678.4
1723.6
0.64
Apr-05
2592.0
1638.3
0.63
May-05
2678.4
1772.2
0.66
Jun-05
2592.0
1709.0
0.66
Jul-05
2678.4
1781.3
0.67
Aug-05
2678.4
1498.2
0.56
Sep-05
2592.0
1305.1
0.50
Oct-05
2678.4
1744.2
0.65
Nov-05
2592.0
1560.9
0.60
Dec-05
2678.4
1717.9
0.64
Jan-06
2678.4
1739.8
0.65
Feb-06
2505.6
1512.8
0.60
5 April 2006
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Mission Metrics
Observing Efficiency
0.80
0.75
Scheduled Efficiency
0.70
0.65
0.60
0.55
0.50
0.45
0.40
Mar-05
5 April 2006
Apr-05
May-05
Jun-05
Jul-05
Aug-05
Sep-05
Oct-05
CXC Status Report/CUC
Nov-05
Dec-05
Jan-06
Feb-06
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Data Delivery Effectiveness
As of middle of following month
Month
Number
of Obs
Days to Data
Delivery
Min
Avg
Max
As of 3/14/06
Number
Deliv
Number
Outstanding
Number
Deliv
Number
Outstanding
Mar-05
71
0
1
8
71
0
71
0
Apr-05
56
0
1
11
56
0
56
0
May-05
55
0
2
13
54
1
55
0
Jun-05
67
0
1
20
67
0
67
0
Jul-05
83
0
1
4
83
0
83
0
Aug-05
43
0
1
9
43
0
43
0
Sep-05
35
0
1
6
35
0
35
0
Oct-05
67
0
1
12
67
0
67
0
Nov-05
76
0
1
5
76
0
76
0
Dec-05
76
0
2
14
76
0
76
0
Jan-06
67
0
1
3
63
4
67
0
Feb-06
91
0
1
4
91
0
91
0
5 April 2006
CXC Status Report/CUC
Obsids Outstanding
(see below for details)
Page 16
Grant Award Effectiveness
Non-Federal (SAO-Issued) Awards (2)
As of middle of following month
Month of
Data
Delivery
Federal
Awards
(1)
NonFederal
Awards (3)
No. Grants
Awarded
No.
Outstanding
As of 3/17/06
Avg days
to award
(4)
No. Grants
Awarded
No.
Outstanding
Mar-05
1
9
6
3
20
9
0
Apr-05
0
13
7
6
16
13
0
May-05
0
26
26
0
15
26
0
Jun-05
2
10
7
3
11
10
0
Jul-05
3
10
9
1
16
10
0
Aug-05
2
4
4
0
9
4
0
Sep-05
4
6
2
4
6
6
0
Oct-05
2
3
1
2
10
3
0
Nov-05
0
5
2
3
9
5
0
Dec-05
1
7
7
0
13
7
0
Jan-06
6
61
56
5
12
61
0
Feb-06
0
16
11
5
8
11
5
Outstanding Awards
Proposal no, Comments
7400430, 7501083 A&B,
7701063, 7700998
(1) Grants awarded to scientists at Federal institutions as interagency transfers through MSFC.
(2) Grants awarded to scientists at non-Federal institutions through SAO Contracts and Grants Department.
(3) Number of grants eligible for award, for which data were delivered to the observer in the month
(4) Average days from data delivery to grant award to observer.
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Grant Award Efficiency
CXC GO Award Distribution (# Of Days from Data Distribution to Award )
October 15, 2005 through February 28, 2006
# of Days
125
100
75
50
25
0
2
2/
2
1/
/2
12
/1
11
/1
10
Data Distribution Date
SAO Days to Award
5 April 2006
SAO Outstanding Awards
CXC Status Report/CUC
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