STEREO Weekly Meeting Minutes for 2008-07-22 (Week 30) ANNOUNCEMENTS ------------- * The switch to 480 kbps has been delayed to October 12 for Ahead, and September 16 for Behind based on an updated analysis. * The MOC modem pool is back online. The instrument teams should test their contingency operations with the modem pool, and send a test command to their instruments. INSTRUMENT AND SPACECRAFT STATUS -------------------------------- * All subsystems on both spacecraft are nominal, except that the Ahead spececraft is currently operating on IMU #2. DISCUSSION AND OPERATIONS CONSTRAINTS ------------------------------------- Week 29 * The average daily downlink was 7.4 gigabits on Ahead and 7.7 gigabits on Behind. * Weather caused intermittent data dropouts during the station 26 pass for Behind on day 198 (July 16). This caused data loss for SECCHI and for IMPACT and PLASTIC space weather data. * Station 54 went red on day 198 (July 16), causing the Behind track on the next day to be switched too station 55, with a time shift. However, the station was able to be configured in time to carry out the momentum dump on Behind on day 199 (Jul 17). Week 30 * Nothing unusual planned. Week 31 * There will be a test of the 480 kbps telemetry rate on Ahead on Thursday, Jul 31. This test will be primarily for the MOps and DSN. This rate has been used on the spacecraft in the past. The track will be 5 hours in duration, and will be 24 hours after the preceeding track. The telemetry will be in Turbo 1/4 and NRZ-L format. * There will be another track on Ahead on Jul 31, 3 hours after the previous track. This track will be at 720 kbps, and will include a momentum dump at 20:20 UT. * The SECCHI team plans to have a large amount of data in their synoptic partition at the beginning of the 480 kbps test track, and anticipate that the partition will still be 20% full at the end of the track. The remainder of the synoptic partition will be read during the following track on the same day, so that partition space will be available for the solar eclipse support observations the following day. * There will be a total solar eclipse at Earth on Friday, Aug 1. SECCHI will support the eclipse observations by moving their high cadence observations to 8-12 UT, which includes the eclipse times at Earth. The first track after the eclipse will be on Ahead at 11:30 UT. Information about total solar eclipse is available at http://eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov/SEmono/TSE2008/TSE2008.html Week 32 * Five hour tracks will begin August 4 on both spacecraft. However, the actual change to 480 kbps has been pushed back to October 12 for Ahead, and September 16 for Behind. This is based partially on using a link margin of 1.5 dB instead of the previous 3 dB margin. Other * There was some discussion of whether the link margin for beacon telemetry should be 3 dB or 1.5 dB. This pertains both to when the beacon mode needs to be switched from Viterbe to Turbo, and when the stations can no longer expect to receive the beacon telemetry. Currently, it's expected that the beacon mode will need to switch to Turbo in October 2009. NOAA still needs to develop the software to allow the beacon stations to use Turbo. COORDINATED OBSERVATIONS ------------------------ ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Scheduled activities for Week 29: M Jul 14 (196) T Jul 15 (197) W Jul 16 (198) T Jul 17 (199) Behind: momentum dump, 19:45 F Jul 18 (200) S Jul 19 (201) S Jul 20 (202) Notes: * ICAL July 16, 11-14 UT ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Scheduled activities for Week 30: M Jul 21 (203) T Jul 22 (204) W Jul 23 (205) JOP 80, EIT shutterless, 21:00-23:50 UT T Jul 24 (206) F Jul 25 (207) S Jul 26 (208) S Jul 27 (209) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Scheduled activities for Week 31: M Jul 28 (210) T Jul 29 (211) W Jul 30 (212) JOP 80, EIT shutterless, 17:00-19:50 UT T Jul 31 (213) Ahead: 480 kbps test track Ahead: momentum dump, 20:20 UT F Aug 01 (214) Total solar eclipse, 9:20-11:20 UT S Aug 02 (215) S Aug 03 (216) Notes: * Information about total solar eclipse available at http://eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov/SEmono/TSE2008/TSE2008.html ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Scheduled activities for Week 32: M Aug 04 (217) Both: Begin 5 hour daily DSN tracks T Aug 05 (218) W Aug 06 (219) T Aug 07 (220) F Aug 08 (221) S Aug 09 (222) S Aug 10 (223) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Scheduled activities for Week 33: M Aug 11 (224) T Aug 12 (225) W Aug 13 (226) T Aug 14 (227) F Aug 15 (228) S Aug 16 (229) S Aug 17 (230) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Upcoming events: 2008: SECCHI Stepped calibration rolls Ahead: Sep 23, Dec 16 Behind: Aug 26, Dec 2 ICAL-001: Aug 4-8, Sep 1-5, Oct 6-10, Nov 3-7, Dec 1-5 * Sep 16 Behind: Switch downlink rate to 480 kbps * Oct 6 Messenger - Mercury fly-by * Oct 12 Ahead: Switch downlink rate to 480 kbps * Oct 16,28 JOP 80, EIT shutterless * Nov 1-Dec 15 SUMER campaign (may be cancelled)