ACE Weekly 03/05/04 - 03/11/04

All ACE spacecraft subsystems are performing nominally as ACE is 
progressing outbound from its closest angular approach to the Sun. An 
attitude maneuver was successfully executed on 03/08/04. The next attitude 
maneuver is tentatively scheduled for 03/16/04.

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Orbit Events:

The current ACE transit began February 22 and ends March 15 (a span of 
22.49 days). This transit will involve the closest angular approach to the 
Sun yet seen, i.e., 0.63 degree (deg) from solar center. (By comparison, 
the solar angular radius as seen from Earth at that epoch will be approx. 
0.27 deg). The updated details and epochs (UTC) follow:

22 Feb 05:22  4.75 deg inbound
28 Feb 15:51  2.0  deg inbound
01 Mar 17:19  1.19 deg inbound
03 Mar 21:57  0.63 deg closest approach
06 Mar 13:40  1.19 deg outbound
08 Mar 17:55  2.0  deg outbound
15 Mar 16:14  4.75 deg outbound

The 1.19 deg reference was included because that was the closest approach 
during the December transit. ACE will spend 4.85 days within the 1.19 deg zone.

=====================================================================
OCRs Executed:

None

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Ongoing Activities:

TAPS:
- Release 4.2.1 was delivered on 02/27/04 and is currently being regression 
tested by the FOT. Some problems have been encountered and the developers 
have been notified. While these problems will be required to be fixed they 
should not preclude the transition from GTAS to TAPS tentatively scheduled 
for 03/18/04.
- Comments submitted from the latest SUG review have been included in the 
latest revision of the SUG released for review on 03/10/04.

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Automation (ROBOTT):
- Release 0.5 was installed on String 2 on 03/09/04. CRON testing  will 
begin on 03/19/04, with failover monitor testing to begin the week of 
03/22/04.
- Release 0.6 should have fixes for all open DRs and should not include any 
GTAS tasks as the TAPS software should be operational by then. Depending on 
how many DRs are opened for Release 0.5, the next release should be ready 
in early April.


============================================================================
Extra Spacecraft Activities:

None

=====================================================================
Anomalies:
DOY 04068 (03/08/04) ACE Anomaly G04-0020 - MOPSS Errors
While bringing up MOPSS for the scheduled maneuver received error messages 
which inhibited the starting of the MOPSS software processes.  MOPSS was 
recycled and all processes started up nominally.  IMPACT: None. The 
maneuver was not delayed due to this problem.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Glen A. Miller
ACE Flight Operations Observatory Engineer
Honeywell Technology Solutions Inc.
Goddard Space Flight Center
Building 14, Room W10A
Mail Stop 428.2
Greenbelt, MD 20771

Office: 301-286-7071
Pager: 800-425-3174
Fax:    301-286-1729
Email: gamiller@pop500.gsfc.nasa.gov
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~