ACE Weekly 09/13/2011 - 09/19/2011

The SWICS instrument trigger anomaly is still being investigated.  The
SWICS voltages have been turned on, except the microchannel plate, which
allows limited science data to be collected and excludes the
time-of-flight system.  All other ACE spacecraft subsystems are
performing as expected.

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Orbit/Attitude:

No maneuvers were completed this week.  The next attitude maneuver is
scheduled for Wednesday 09/21/2011.

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OCRs:

DOY 258 (09/15/2011)  1338-1410z  SWICS MOCR 338
SWICS voltages were turned on with the SWICS ramp-up procedure
(swx_rmp.proc).  MCP voltage commands were skipped.

DOY 259 (09/16/2011)  1348-1407z  SWICS MOCR 338
SWICS PAPS voltages increased to 22kV with procedure, swx_hv_adj.proc.
Trigger Mode commanded to Energy only.  

DOY 262 (09/19/2011)  1409-1425z & 1440-1449z  SWICS MOCR 338
SWICS PAPS voltages increased to 26.1kV with procedure, swx_hv_adj.proc.
Trigger Mode commanded to Energy only.  

Summary from the SWICS Instrument Team (edited)
	SWICS has been configured in an ESA-energy only mode, bypassing
the TOF system entirely.  Our aim is to determine the quality of the
data that comes out in this mode of operation.	To do this, we ramped up
SWICS post-acceleration voltage to an operational level (25 kV), while
leaving the MCPs off.  We also configured it to accept only events which
trigger the energy detector and started the electrostatic analyzer
stepping.  Just following this change, we saw rate increases in the main
and auxiliary channel solid state detector rates as a function of E/q,
consistent with expected solar wind signatures.
	SWICS will be in a mode which allows partial science data to be
collected.  We will likely wait until we have 1-2 days of good data
collected in this mode and on the ground before proceeding with further
commanding.

MCP=MicroChannel Plate
ESA=ElectroStatic Analyzer
TOF=Time-Of-Flight
PAPS=Post Acceleration Power Supply

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Activities:

Data Capture:  95.59%  DOY 254-261 2011
258-06:09:36 - 258-13:30:18   loss 07:20:43
258-13:30:19 - 258-13:32:24   loss 00:02:06 ADC covers
260-09:21:06 - 260-09:21:36   loss 00:00:31 SSR Failover
261-07:34:09 - 261-07:35:29   loss 00:01:21 didn't dump

For the first week, we're doing better than our expected 7% data loss.

FDF Product Server Update
FDF has created accounts for the FOT on the OIONet server (bonham), but
the FDF analysts are configuring the RIONet server (stewart).  The
bonham and stewart servers are not being mirrored.  On Monday, FDF
created one FOT account for stewart.

MOCR 338 requested a firewall update to allow the MMOC to connect to the
new FDF product server (stewart).  This request came late on a Friday
afternoon (9/2/2011) and was implemented immediately to provide feedback
to FDF.  The firewall change was implemented on an old rule-set and
rules implemented since August were lost.  This included the firewall
rule to allow the VAFB SCD to connect to the MMOC for forwarding RTSW
data to NOAA SWPC.  This was resolved on Thursday 09/15/2011.

The NICT (Japan) antenna which tracks ACE for NOAA Space Weather
Prediction Center was scheduled to be down Tuesday-Thursday (DOY 256-258
0000-0500z).  On DOY 256, AFSCN was not scheduled.  On DOY 257, MMOC
firewall problems prevented data flow.  On DOY 258, AFSCN was scheduled
and data successfully flowed through the MMOC, but the NICT antenna was
back in operations at this point.

SWEPAM instrument calibration is performed every Monday.  With two
passes scheduled for Monday 09/19/2011, the automation system would send
the calibration commands during each pass.  The instrument team was
notified of this.  They replied that manual intervention was not
required to avoid the second calibration cycle.

Background information on data capture
	ACE often receives 100% data capture.  The following provides
some background information.  The spacecraft generates an 868 byte frame
once a second (996 bytes with R/S encoding).  This corresponds to
500.6MB per week.  The spacecraft data generation is constant.
	ACE needs ~19 hours per week to dump the data, of which 2 of
those hours (cumulative per week) are for configuring the spacecraft
before and after the data playback.  ACE is allocated 24.5 hours per
week of passes, plus an additional 3 hours of range only passes.  The
5.5 extra hours are sufficient to make up for antenna problems and to
redump gaps.  During the 3 weeks of the GRAIL launch, ACE antenna time
has been 17.8, 18.3 and 16.7 hours.  Avoiding recording during passes
saved ~1.5 hours per week.
	The following provides the percentage of data allocated to the
ACE instruments.  This is only a measure of the the raw data generation
(including instrument housekeeping) and not a measure of science value.
S3DPU data is split among SEPICA, SWICS and SWIMS.  On 4/20/2011, SEPICA
was powered off and the data in that region is not of value.

	Instrument  per frame  per week  percentage
	----------  ---------  --------  ----------
	MAG          37 bytes   12.3 MB    4.3%
	EPAM         21 bytes   12.1 MB    2.4%
	CRIS         57 bytes   32.9 MB    6.6%
	SIS         249 bytes  143.6 MB   28.7%
	SWEPAM-I     68 bytes   39.2 MB    7.8%
	SWEPAM-E     68 bytes   39.2 MB    7.8%
	ULEIS       125 bytes   72.1 MB   14.4%
	S3DPU       121 bytes   69.8 MB   13.9%
	SEPICA       22 bytes   12.7 MB    2.5%
	SWICS        35 bytes   20.2 MB    4.0%
	SWIMS        25 bytes   14.4 MB    2.9%
	Hskp+header  40 bytes   23.1 MB    4.6%


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Anomalies:

DOY 257  09/14/2011  S-ACE-0542  G11-0052  SSR cfgmon problems
The ITOS configuration monitors needed to be updated for the new SSR
procedures.  The configuration monitors were updated with MOCR 340, but
the old version of the configuration monitor was still running on the
following pass.
Impact:  The final state-of-health checks and 5 minutes of SSR redumps
were not performed.  Manual intervention to clean up the ITOS
procedures.