Operations CXO Status Report

Friday 22 December 2006 9.00am EDT

Observing loads were restarted at 5.30pm on Dec 14 following an extended period of high solar activity. Observations that were impacted due to the solar events will be rescheduled in later loads. A real-time procedure was conducted on Dec 16 to lower the Aspect Camera CCD temperature from -18 to -19 deg C. This is the fourth of five 1 deg C step reductions planned to mitigate the increasing number of warm pixels. A real-time procedure was conducted on Dec 18 to uplink an update to the on-board gyro scale-factor and alignment matrix. Following the uplink, a series of test maneuvers were executed from the daily load to assess the new values. The performance of the pointing system matched model predictions extremely well. A Chandra image release was issued on Dec 18 showing the star forming complex W3 Main located in the star forming region, W3. The Chandra image shows hundreds of X-ray sources in the central region of W3 Main. These bright point-like objects are an extensive population of several hundred young stars, many of which were not found in earlier infrared studies. For details, see: http://chandra.harvard.edu/photo/2006/w3/ The Mission Planning team worked hard to develop a 2 week schedule to cover the holiday period as shown below. The schedule includes the next ten of a series of 36 tiled observations that will comprise the 0.7 square deg, 1.8 Ms, COSMOS survey.

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NGC2563-P14             ACIS-I       Dec 25
HBC 358/59              ACIS-I
PSR J2021+3651          ACIS-S
Radiation Belts                      Dec 26
RXC J1109.7+214         ACIS-S
UGC 4422                ACIS-S       Dec 27
MS0839.9+2938           ACIS-I
NGC 3073                ACIS-S
Abell 695               ACIS-S
C-COSMOS1-2             ACIS-I       Dec 28
Radiation Belts
PSR J2021+3651          ACIS-S       Dec 29
A665                    ACIS-I       Dec 30
Abell 695               ACIS-S
C-COSMOS1-3             ACIS-I
C-COSMOS3-3             ACIS-I       Dec 31
Radiation Belts
RXJ1131-1231            ACIS-S       Jan 1
C-COSMOS3-3             ACIS-I
UGC 3059                ACIS-S
3C454.3                 ACIS-S/HETG
Abell 520               ACIS-I
MS0906.5+1110           ACIS-I
SDSS J0928+1848         ACIS-S
C-COSMOS3-5             ACIS-I
C-COSMOS3-6             ACIS-I       Jan 2
Radiation Belts                      Jan 3
M87                     ACIS-S
IGR J14561-3738         ACIS-S
C-COSMOS4-3             ACIS-I       Jan 4
C-COSMOS4-4             ACIS-I
C-COSMOS4-5             ACIS-I       Jan 5
Radiation Belts                      Jan 6
SDSSJ090332.77+01123    ACIS-S
7C1023+3604             ACIS-S
IRAS F10173+0828        ACIS-S       Jan 7
C-COSMOS4-6             ACIS-I
IGR J07506-1547         HRC-I

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The next report is planned for Jan 5 following the holiday. A Happy Holiday and New Year to everyone from the Chandra Team!

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