SOHO SPWG Minutes
SPWG FINAL MINUTES
Friday 30 January 2004
1. Boundary conditions
* SOHO is "upside down" until the next manoeuvre, tentatively planned
for March 30. It will include (order TBD) a station keeping (SK),
momentum management (MM), and an 180 degree roll. The preliminary
fuel estimate for the station keeping is 0.0685 kg.
* The scheduling windows for the next 2 keyhole periods are given
below. For estimated keyhole dates through 2006 follow
this link.
* Mar 15 High Rate on 26m stations ends, TBC
* Mar 19 High Rate on 34m stations ends, TBC
* Apr 4 High Rate on 34m stations resumes, TBC
* Apr 8 High Rate on 26m stations resumes, TBC
* Jun 16 High Rate on 26m stations ends, TBC
* Jun 19 High Rate on 34m stations ends, TBC
* Jun 29 High Rate on 34m stations resumes, TBC
* Jul 3 High Rate on 26m stations resumes, TBC
* Long-term DSN outlook: Note that the Mars missions have
"consumables" that may last through the end of 2004. We can expect
keyhole schedules similar to the last one as long as the Mars
missions are operational. Outside keyholes, we may also see less
contact time than we are used to: No data loss is expected, but some
days will have awkward commanding times (no Goldstone pass).
It seems like the fall 2003 keyhole may have been exceptionally
good. The long-term scheduling for 2005 and 2006 indicates that
there will be very substantial losses of normal VC0/1 during most
keyholes, but we hope that the SSR patch will be there to capture
GOLF, VIRGO and MDI structure with no interruptions.
* The DSN schedule for the March/April keyhole can be found at
http://soho.nascom.nasa.gov/soc/keyhole.mar04. This file will be
updated when a simulation has been completed, to include recorded
time intervals. Further details (e.g. expected start and end times
for VC0/1 losses) will also be made available at that time. As an
approximation in the mean time, VC0/1 losses can be expected to
occur from March 19 to April 4, inclusive (while we are on the Low
Gain Antenna).
We are attempting to get off-line support during the March/April
keyhole from the ESA ground station New Norcia (western Australia).
Data would be recorded and shipped on a delayed basis, and there
would be no commanding, obviously. A successful test of tracking and
recording VC0/1/2 was performed this week (data yet to be
shipped). New Norcia is primarily dedicated to Mars mission support
(as are the large DSN stations), so additional time will be
limited. We expect Medium Rate only on this station when using the
Low Gain Antenna.
Work is also being done on creating an on-board patch for recording
only selected APIDs (e.g. GOLF, VIRGO, MDI and possibly some
spacecraft housekeeping data) on the SSR. Such a patch would
probably make it possible to preserve a continuous data set for
those three instruments. There is a small chance that such a patch
can be developed in time for the March/April keyhole. In that case,
there will most likely be no recording of other instrument data
during the central part of the keyhole (March 19-April 4).
Unless a Major Flare Watch is in progress, TRACE will be doing full
disk mosaics if/when EIT is not able to do synoptic sets due to
keyhole operations.
* MDI continuous contacts
Jan 28-Feb 2 MDI Continuous Contact
Feb 11-16 MDI Continuous Contact
* Submodes: Submode 6 until after March/April keyhole (about April 8)
Submode 5 for about 6 weeks following April 8 (May 20)
Submode 6 for about 1 week, TBC
Submode 5 for MEDOC Campaign #13, TBC (see below)
The 6-week SUMER campaign following April 8 will cover polar plume
oscillations, X-ray jets and coronal microevents, possibly a
CDS/SUMER line widths study, and the SOHO-Ulysses quadrature (all
off-disk observations). In addition, Lyman continuum variability
observations will be done on-disk.
* May 31-Jun 13 MEDOC Campaign #13, TBC
* EIT Bakeout/Shutterless/Other:
* Feb 18, 25 EIT Shutterless Run #14
* Mar 19-Apr 4 EIT Bakeout (TENTATIVE)
NOTE: The bakeout dates above are tentative and are based on the
likely dates for loss of VC0/1 (see keyhole discussion above), NOT on
input from EIT.
NOTE: All shutterless and bakeout dates are obviously TBD with keyhole
operations. Presumably, bakeouts will be scheduled preferentially during
periods with poor DSN coverage.
TRACE will support the shutterless runs.
* Commanding outlook: See AOB section.
* TRACE is in eclipse season until approximately February 5. TRACE
will still be seeing Atmospheric Absorption through the month of
February even though the hard eclipses will be ending. During
eclipse season, TRACE will only load plans on Mondays, Wednesdays,
and Fridays. Daily loads will be resumed in March.
* Mercury Transits 2004: FDF has checked all 3 inferior conjunctions
of Mercury for 2004, and it appears that none of them will be
transits as seen by SOHO. Below is a table with the epochs
(geometric, i.e no light time correction), angular radius of closest
approach in degrees, and the angular diameter of Mercury's disk at
the epoch (all data as seen from SOHO):
April 17 05:36:41 UTC 1.893 deg 11.88 arc-sec
August 23 23:10:32 UTC 4.374 deg 10.99 arc-sec
December 10 06:35:15 UTC 1.601 deg 10.05 arc-sec
* Venus Transit: The DSN schedule for the Venus transit (June 8, DOY
160, closest approach at about 13:30 UT) is currently as follows:
DOY 160 DSS-66 0450-1330 (BOT-EOT)
DOY 160 DSS-16 1310-0115 (BOT-EOT)
This will only be a coronal transit seen from SOHO, and we will
likely be in record during the most relevant time period, possibly
restricted by the need to ensure that no MDI Magnetogram is lost
during the Venus transit. VC2 periods will be inserted (timing may
be dependent on downlink quality) as needed to preserve all
magnetograms.
Transit details from FDF as of November 2002 can be found at
http://soho.nascom.nasa.gov/soc/venus-transit.txt. Other relevant
intformation (the transit as seen from Earth) can be found at
http://sunearth.gsfc.nasa.gov/eclipse/OH/transit04.html
FDF is working on an update of the timing and closest approach,
based on the latest orbit. An ephemeris will be requested somewhat
later, when orbit uncertainties are small enough to warrant the
effort.
We will most likely be in Submode 5 during the Venus transit, due
to MEDOC Campaign #13 (TBC).
LASCO will do special observations with ground based observatories
for about 2 weeks on either side of the Venus transit. In Submode 5,
this will mean a roughly 2-hour hole in EIT's CME watch every day,
except those days when Venus is behind the C2 occulter (dates
TBD). In Submode 6 the hole would be about 1 hour every day.
TRACE will also observe the Venus Transit.
2. Priorities for the coming month & more
a) Joint observing plans and campaigns
* Jan 25-Feb 1 Dynamics of Small Scale Solar Activity (#7017), CDS/Sac Peak,
POC: Luca Teriaca, Local POC: Peter Gallagher
* Feb 1-11 Photospheric Response to White Light Flares, TRACE/SPO/MDI,
~17-24 UT, POC: Sarah Matthews (sam@mssl.ucl.ac.uk)
Will likely use Max Millennium target.
MDI is willing to support this, but they have not received a specific
request for it. If anything specific is needed, please contact
mdiops@mdisas.nascom.nasa.gov.
* Feb-Sep Quiescent AR Loop Diagnostics (#7019), CDS/TRACE/EIT,
POC: Helen Mason (h.e.mason@damtp.cam.ac.uk)
Local POC: CDS Planner
This is a target of opportunity for the next 6 months. The campaign
number is 7019. The CDS planner will coordinate with TRACE when
applicable, usually by following TRACE pointing.
EIT contributes w/CME watch and synoptics.
This is at the top of CDS' flexible operations for next week. Peter
Young, next week's planner, and one of the proposers fo the study,
will decide whether to run it, and may contact TRACE. Normally,
however, this study would be run when a suitable region is on the
limb AND TRACE is observing it.
* Mar/Apr JOP172 Coronal Micro-Events, RHESSI/TRACE/CDS/MDI/EIT,
POC: Karel Schrijver (schryver@lmsal.com), TOO
Will most likely be run after TRACE has done some calibrations. MDI
will support it as long as it doesn't conflict with continuous
contacts or keyholes. Note that there is a keyhole right in the
March-April timeframe!
* Mar 1-14 UCLAN Loop Variability, CDS/TRACE, TBC,
POC: Mike Marsh (mmarsh@uclan.ac.uk)
* Mar 4-14 Quasi-steady Coronal Loops, TRACE/SPO/Sac Peak/Big Bear,
POC: Ted Tarbell (tarbell@lmco.com)
MDI is willing to support this, but they have not received a specific
request for it. If anything specific is needed, please contact
mdiops@mdisas.nascom.nasa.gov
* TBD date Photospheric/Chromospheric Motions near Sunspots/Filaments,
TRACE/MDI/DOT/Meudon/Pic du Midi,
POC: Thierry Roudier (roudier@bigorre.bagn.obs-mip.fr)
More input is expected from Roudier.
MDI is willing to support this as long as it does not conflict with
keyholes or continuous contacts.
NEW JOP:
* May or July JOP173 3D Structure and Dynamics of Sunspots (TBC),
07:00-22:00 UT, TRACE/MDI/VTT/THEMIS/SST/DOT/DST/MST,
POC: Karin Muglach
This will likely be updated, and will be discussed in detail at a later
SPWG meeting.
MDI is willing to support this as long as it does not conflict with
keyholes or continuous contacts.
Continuing campaigns:
* JOP159 CMEs in Lyman-alpha (#6870), SWAN/LASCO/EIT/UVCS,
POC: Chris St Cyr, Eric Quemerais
Targets of opportunity for the whole period:
* JOP136/MMOP009 Default RHESSI collaboration (#6850)
* JOP153/MMOP003 Major Flare Watch (#7020)
Campaign #6850 is for "individual instrument studies" selecting an
AR target [partially] influenced by the Max Millennium target. This
target will be observed by a significant number of ground based
observatories, so chances for serendipitous co-observations are
good.
b) Intercalibration activities
Last Intercal 1: January 14 (Week 03)
* Week 07 Intercal 1, CDS/EIT
c) Individual instrument plans
MDI:
See section 1 (boundary conditions) for MDI continuous contact periods.
MDI will downlink Magnetograms in the 5k data stream during the
March/April keyhole (exact timing TBD) unless the recorder patch is
available to secure continuous 5k data.
As long as we do not get enough high rate TM to get mags in the 160k
stream, we will continue to downlink them in the 5k when we have
contact. Because of this, I cannot stress enough that people should
make all requests for MDI observations as early as possible to ensure
that MDI can give ANY support to the study.
All requests for MDI support need to be made several months ahead of
time and sent to mdi-ops@mdisas.nascom.nasa.gov.
MDI's REQUEST page is at http://mdisas.nascom.nasa.gov/coordination.txt
NOTE: Listing of a study on that page means *only* that a request has
been received, not that it will necessarily be supported.
UVCS:
See their planning page (below) and the SOHO calendar for weekly plans.
http://cfa-www.harvard.edu/uvcs/observations/obst.html
The following are listed because of NRT requirements or as candidates
for collaboration (with e.g. CDS):
* Jan 19-Feb 4 UVCS Streamer Study
* Feb 5-20 UVCS Observations of the South Coronal Hole and the
Equatorial Coronal Hole
* Feb 22-29 UVCS Streamer Study
CDS:
See their request diary for details
(http://solg2.bnsc.rl.ac.uk/scientificops/request.shtml)
New:
* Feb/Mar CDS Coronal Oscillations in Sunspot Plume Regions,
POC: Eoghan O'Shea (eos@arm.ac.uk)
LASCO/EIT:
See section 1 (boundary conditions) for EIT bakeouts/shutterless and
other special items.
TRACE:
NOTE that TRACE in general reserves the right to withdraw support from
agreed, existing collaborations if a sufficiently "good active region"
is called by the Max Millennium group.
TRACE is in hard eclipse since November 3, and will likely not agree
to participate in JOPs during eclipse season other than those already
agreed to. Hard eclipses end approximately February 5. TRACE will
still be seeing Atmospheric Absorption through the month of February
even though the hard eclipses will be ending. During eclipse season,
TRACE will only load plans on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. Daily
loads will be resumed in March.
During eclipse season, TRACE will only load plans on Mondays,
Wednesdays, and Fridays.
3. AOB
* Next SPWG: Friday February 27, right after weekly meeting in the EOF.
* DSN support should be requested at least 6 months in advance. Keep
this in mind for: ground-based collaborations that require MDI
support, stellar/shutterless observations that require NRT, etc.
* If anyone has projects that require high-cadence MDI support, now is a
good time to ask! If you need MDI data, make sure you request it
specifically. There is no significant change in the shutter
performance over the last 10 months; monitoring continues, but no
immediate changes in operations are planned.
* Commanding outlook
Week 05 - Jan 26 - Feb 01: Gaps during commanding times Monday, Tuesday and
Friday. Downlink-only station early Thursday.
Continuous contact starts early Wednesday but
Friday's gap is over 3 hours. DSS-27 Monday,
Wednesday and weekend.
Week 06 - Feb 02 - Feb 08: Gaps every day, longest ones on Thursday and
Friday. DSS-27 Monday through Wednesday and
Sunday.
Week 07 - Feb 09 - Feb 15: Good contact on Thursday and weekend. Gaps of
3-4 hours all other days very early except on
Monday (15:30-18:45 UT). DSS-27 every day but
Tuesday and Friday.
Week 08 - Feb 16 - Feb 22: Good contact on Monday, Thursday and weekend.
Gaps every day, Wednesday and Friday gaps especially
bad. DSS-27 on Monday and Friday through Sunday.
Week 09 - Feb 23 - Feb 29: Monday has good contact. No morning commanding
Thursday. Afternoons best most days. DSS-27 on
Monday through Wednesday and weekend.