News by Date
News by Category
Solar System
Stars
White Dwarfs
Supernovas
Neutron Stars
Black Holes
Milky Way Galaxy
Normal Galaxies
Quasars
Galaxy Clusters
Cosmology/Deep Field
Miscellaneous
Press Resources
Status Reports
Press Advisories
Image Releases
Release Guidelines
Image Use Policy
NASA TV
Biographies/Interviews
Web Shortcuts
Chandra Blog
RSS Feed
Chronicle
Email Newsletter
News & Noteworthy
Image Use Policy
Questions & Answers
Glossary of Terms
Download Guide
Get Adobe Reader
Chandra @ NASA
Visit the Chandra pages at the NASA portal (opens in new window)
Image Use
Image Use Policy & Request Form
Guidelines for utilizing images, applets, movies, and animations featured in this Web Site.
Operations CXO Status Report

Friday 23 March 2018 9.00am EDT

During the last week Chandra completed the observing schedule as planned.

During the evening comm pass on Mar 20 it was discovered that the ACIS B-side door mechanism was unexpectedly in an enabled state. This put the instrument in an undesired state where a single command could cause the ACIS door to close. A real-time procedure was executed to test the science instrument remote command and telemetry unit and then to command the ACIS B-side door mechanism to be disabled. The cause of this anomaly is under investigation, with a single event upset in the electronics being a possible explanation. There was no impact to ACIS science observations and ACIS has operated nominally since the event.

Another real-time procedure was executed earlier on Mar 20 to perform a full-frame dark current readout of the Aspect Camera Assembly CCD during a standard one-hour comm pass. This was a second demonstration of an operational concept to obtain dark current data more frequently than the current cadence of four times per year.

Chandra passed through a 10 minute, penumbra-only lunar eclipse on Mar 17 with nominal power and thermal performance.

Of note this week was the release on Mar 19 of CalDB version 4.7.8. This upgrade includes updates for the ACIS T_GAIN files and the HRC-S GAPLOOKUP (degap) tables.

The schedule of targets for the next week is shown below and includes an observation of Jupiter coordinated with Juno.



------------------------------------------
        J0313-2546             ACIS-S       Mar 26
        SN2012aw               ACIS-S
        SN2013df               ACIS-S
        HZ43                   HRC-S /LETG  Mar 27
        J1421-0643             ACIS-S
        PSRJ1544-5308          ACIS-S
        SN1987A                ACIS-S/HETG
        Radiation Belts                     Mar 28
        SN1987A                ACIS-S/HETG
        J1046+0243             ACIS-S       Mar 29
        J1421-0643             ACIS-S
        PSRJ1738-3211          ACIS-S
        SN1987A                ACIS-S/HETG
        SDSSJ211706.99-0643    ACIS-S
        J1421-0643             ACIS-S       Mar 30
        PSRJ1851-0053          ACIS-S
        SN1987A                ACIS-S/HETG
        Radiation Belts                     Mar 31
        SN1987A                ACIS-S/HETG
        3FGLJ1700.4-4019       ACIS-S
        J1421-0643             ACIS-S
        Jupiter                HRC-I
        Jupiter                HRC-I        Apr  1
        J1421-0643             ACIS-S
        PSRJ1819-1318          ACIS-S       Apr  2
        SN1987A                ACIS-S/HETG
        Radiation Belts

------------------------------------------

All spacecraft subsystems continued to support nominal operations.

Return to Status Reports