During the last week the observing schedule was interrupted due to high radiation associated with solar activity. The loads were halted at 12:34am EDT on Mar 17 through a ground command to execute the SI Safing SCS 107. This ensured that the accumulated radiation dose for ACIS remained below the allowed threshold. All spacecraft actions were nominal. Real-time procedures was executed on Mar 17 to disable SCS-29, which was enabled during the safing sequence, and to initiate a long ACIS CTI data collection while waiting to return to observing. Loads for a replanned schedule were uplinked on Mar 18 with 124.4ks of science loss. Planned observations of BRC2, NGC5033, and HAT-P-11 were impacted by the interruption and will be rescheduled.

A Chandra image release was issued on Mar 16 describing observations of the "classical nova" GK Persei. Classical novas are outbursts produced by a thermonuclear explosion on the surface of a white dwarf star and are considered to be miniature versions of supernova explosions. Astronomers used Chandra to observe differences in GK Persei over a span of nearly 14 years. For details see: http://chandra.si.edu/photo/2015/gkper/

Of note this week, the Chandra Cycle 17 proposal deadline was Mar 17 at 6pm EDT.

The schedule of targets for the next two weeks is shown below and includes an observation of WPVS 007, which was accepted as a Director's Discretionary Time Target of Opportunity on Mar 4, an observation of GRB 150314A, which was accepted as a Target of Opportunity on Mar 19 and observations of the Pleiades coordinated with Kepler.