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Operations CXO Status Report

Friday 24 March 2006 9.00am EST

During the last week the observing schedule was interrupted following a high radiation event at 8:32pm on Mar 20 that stopped the daily load and activated the science instrument safing sequence (SCS 107). The event occurred just prior to radiation belt entry and is thought to be due to a 'puffed-up' belt state caused by high levels of coronal stream activity. The loads were replanned and science was re-started at radiation belt exit on Mar 21 with 10.25 Ks of science loss. One calibration observation of E0102-72 and a test in preparation for a series of observations of Venus were also impacted by the event.

The loads were replanned a second time and uplinked on Mar 23 to allow for the conduct of the Venus pathfinder test on March 24. During the test, stars were acquired by the Aspect Camera using its hardware commands in order to assess the acquisition/tracking success of stars in the presence of Venus. The results of the test will be incorporated into the plan for the observations scheduled for next week.

A Chandra press release was issued in Mar 23 describing observations of the quasars 4C37.43 and 3C249.1 that provide clues on how quasars "turn on". For details see: http://chandra.harvard.edu/press/06_releases/press_032306.html

The schedule of targets for next week is shown below and includes the series of Venus observations discussed above and an observation of M81 coordinated with the VLA.

------------------------------------------
Radiation Belts                      Mar 26
XTE J1739-285           HRC-S
XTE J1701-462           HRC-S
Venus (13 Obs)          ACIS-I
IGRJ17488-3253          HRC-I        Mar 28
IGRJ17513-2011          HRC-I
IGRJ18048-1544          HRC-I
IGRJ15359-5750          HRC-I
4C19.44                 ACIS-S
Radiation Belts
WR 140                  ACIS-S/HETG  Mar 29
M87                     ACIS-S       Mar 30
SDSS J172314.14+65      ACIS-S
SDSS J172958.76+57      ACIS-S
SDSS J171603.79+64      ACIS-S
4C19.44                 ACIS-S
NGC 1672                ACIS-S
Radiation Belts                      Mar 31
M81                     ACIS-S/HETG  Apr 1
4C19.44                 ACIS-S
A2125                   ACIS-I       Apr 2

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

All spacecraft subsystems continued to support nominal operations.

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