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 24 July 2009 9.00am EDT

On July 23, we celebrated the 10th anniversary of Chandra's launch and 10 years of successful scientific operations. The spacecraft and instruments continue to produce superb science and we look forward with excitement to the coming year of discovery!

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

On July 19 the pressure reported for the momentum unloading propulsion system (MUPS) tank was anomalously low. As a precaution against a potential leak, a real-time procedure was executed to close a valve to isolate the prime bank of thrusters. Telemetry analysis determined that the readings exhibited a drop of 21 psi over 45 min before changing to a slower rate. All other spacecraft telemetry was nominal. Over subsequent days the reading continued an extremely slow decline and has now leveled. A real-time procedure was executed on July 21 to re-open the valve to the prime bank thrusters as its closure had no effect. A detailed fault-tree of possible causes of the anomaly is being developed which includes the case for false readings from the pressure sensor, internal or external leaks from the MUPS, as well as other causes. Use of the MUPS system had not been scheduled for the week and as a precaution, future weeks will be scheduled without momentum dumps while the anomaly is being analyzed. Note that we expect science to continue without significant impact even in the worst case of a leak and loss of all fuel. In this case we would expect a small decrease in observing efficiency.

A Chandra image release was issued on July 23 in conjunction with the tenth anniversary of Chandra's launch. The image was of the debris of an exploded star, supernova remnant 1E 0102.2-7219, or "E0102" for short. The Chandra image shows the outer blast wave produced by the supernova, and an inner ring of cooler material. This inner ring is probably expanding ejecta from the explosion that is being heated by a shock wave traveling backwards into the ejecta. For further details see: http://chandra.harvard.edu/photo/2009/e0102/

The schedule of targets for the next week is shown below.

------------------------------------------
Radiation Belts                    Jul 27
LP400-22               ACIS-S      Jul 28
J1718-3718             ACIS-S
NGC6440                ACIS-S
PSRJ1852+0040          ACIS-S      Jul 29
3C268.3                ACIS-S
Radiation Belts                    Jul 30
3C268.3                ACIS-S
NGC4051                ACIS-S      Jul 31
LS5039                 ACIS-S
IGRJ17254-3257         HRC-I 
N49                    ACIS-S
VelaPWN                ACIS-S      Aug  1
SDSSJ1539+4203         ACIS-S
Radiation Belts              
RXJ1757.3+6631         ACIS-I      Aug  2
LS5039                 ACIS-S

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

All spacecraft subsystems continued to support nominal operations.

Return to Status Reports