SOHO SPWG Minutes


Chair: Piet Martens (ESA/SOC) Minutes: Laura Allen (NASA/SOC) Present: Joe Michels (UVCS), Philippe Lemaire (SUMER), Rock Bush (MDI), Emily Zamkoff (MDI), Joe Gurman (EIT), Chris StCyr (LASCO), Bud Benefield (FOT), Andrzej Fludra (CDS), Luis Sanchez (ESA), Helmut Sweitzer (ESA), Jeff Newmark (EIT), Art Poland (NASA), Julia Saba (MDI), Craig DeForest (MDI), Bernhard Fleck (ESA) Joan Hollis (SOC)

1. Review of action items

- EIT Offset proposal: EIT has made yet another revision request. Joe Gurman will distribute memo to SWT for permission. (Basically, EIT wants to stop at a yet to be determined point on the way to 40 arcminutes. For example, go to 10 arcminutes, 15 arcminutes, then 40 arcminutes and dwell for 20 minutes at each stop. However, not certain yet where the stops would take place. Memo with details will be sent to SWT for approval. It would take approximately 6 hours for 40 arcminute offpoint in one direction and 3 hours for +/- 25 arcminute offpoint. Increasing the number of stops on the way to 40 arcminute offset, would not significantly add to the 6 hours .. as getting there is done in small steps anyway.) - Roll maneuver: Agreed. CDS requested some minor modifications, at +60/-60 delta positions requested to dwell 65 minutes and all other positions a 25 minute dwell is requested. After these changes are incorporated, a timeline will be distributed. Main highlights are: * Over 7 hours of NRT prior to starting the roll. Adequate time before and after the roll for 13.5 hour CDS study to be performed. * It has been determined that no slight offset will be needed prior to the roll around the solar circumference like the last time this was performed. (for reaction wheel speed constraints). * Estimate beginning the long dwell at +90 degrees delta at ~ 06:30 UT Thursday morning and rolling back to the nominal position at 17:35 UT for roughly 11 hours at +90. Note: 1) THIS IS AN ESTIMATE -- and actual arrival time at +90 can be earlier or later depending on how things go. 2) This satisfies the SUMER constraint to have portion of the dwell at +90 during Tenerife observing hours of 8-12 UT). - Upgrade of Submode 3: Ready to go. We have the tape and have scheduled it to be uplinked on Monday, March 2 at 18:00 UT.

2. Boundary conditions for the coming month

- All of March: Continuous Contact - TRACE update: E-mail from Ted Tarbell appended to end of minutes - Submode changes: Submode 3 -- Planned to uplink after the station handover on March 2 at ~ 18:00 UT.

3. Preview of future months

: - FOT summary of maneuver plans for April Sun, Apr 12 - Gyro Cal and Momentum Management (no MDI jitter test) Mon, Apr 13 - No activities. Tues, Apr 14 - E-W Offpointing (3 hours), for EIT calibration Wed, Apr 15 - Oblateness Roll (24 hours max): MDI Oblateness Measurements, SWAN Cross-calibration, SUMER polar scans, CDS polarization studies Thurs, Apr 16 - Roll (continued) Fri, Apr 17 - Station Keeping/Momentum Management, Reaction Wheel 4 Maintenance The SSU Software Patch, which was originally planned for Saturday April 17 has been postponed until May. Recall, this patch requires some time spent in RMW mode. - April SWT, will be held from Monday, April 27 (noon) to Wednesday, April 29. - See Monthly Calendar at http://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/~soc/head_calendar.html

4. Priorities for the coming month

a) Individual instrument plans ------------------------------- EIT -- Planner not present; however EIT members present said nothing unusual is planned. Synoptic and CME watch are still priority and will plan to do a bake out of their detector the weekend of the Building 23 power outage. MDI -- In March, will switch into a full disk high resolution velocity program similar to last month of their continuous last year. CDS - Priorities include a joint program with UVCS, March 2-6 to study coronal holes. On March 6,8, and 9, the VLA observation program: Decimetric Signatures of Transient EUV Events and Source Regions of CME's, VLA/EIT/CDS/LASCO, 18:00 - 22:30 UT. POC: Rob Willson (rwillson@emerald.tufts.edu) Active region movies on the limb and active region jets (March 17-April 5) They also plan another run of the real-time engineering test activity in March. SUMER -- End observing on 27 of February and will resume observations during the week of April roll maneuver. LASCO -- VLA observations (Decimetric Signatures of Transient EUV Events and Source Regions of CME's) on March 6,8, and 9. The last two weeks of March UVCS CME spectra campaign in planning stage. UVCS -- Went over the lead observers schedule (see monthly calendar). b) Intercalibration activities ------------------------------ - Intercal001 penciled in for March 17. c) Joint observing plans ------------------------ See monthly calendar on the WWW.

5. JOPs status

6. New JOPs

- JOP078 Variability and Properties of the Quiet Sun Supergranular Network and Internetwork: Werner Curdt

7. AOB

- Next SPWG Friday March 20 - TRACE REPORT E-mail from Ted Tarbell: ------------------------ Last week the last TRACE instrument functional tests were completed successfully at Vandenberg Air Force Base. They all went well, and the instrument is healthy and ready to go. On Saturday, Feb. 14, the flight filters were installed, the filter chamber pumped down to vacuum, and the telescope sealed up for launch. The spacecraft also had a successful functional test and seems ready to go. All personnel have now returned home to wait for the SNOE launch, after which TRACE can move to the building containng the Pegasus XL rocket for integration. Last week there was also a reasonably successful operations simulation at GSFC, involving coordinated TRACE-SOHO planning and command and telemetry tests in the TRACE EOF. There is some discussion but no firm plan yet for another simulation. The TRACE launch is still officially scheduled for March 14, but a slip of a week or more appears very likely, even if SNOE goes on time on Feb. 26. TRACE scientific observing should begin about 4 weeks after launch (3 weeks outgassing, 1 week commissioning). Three SOHO/TRACE JOP's have appeared on the SOHO web page: # 72, 75, and 78. Several more are in preparation. Anyone can propose a JOP involving TRACE. We request that anyone considering such a JOP contact the TRACE team early in their planning. We need to evaluate the ideas for realism, see if they fit into the existing 30-day plan, and write and test observing sequences. Unless you are already working with one of the TRACE core team members, you should contact Ted Tarbell and/or Karel Schryver (tarbell@sag, schryver@sag.space.lockheed.com). Further information about TRACE can be found at http://www.space.lockheed.com/TRACE/TRACElinks.html The NASA Research Announcement for Guest Investigator programs calls for proposals for TRACE as well as SOHO GI's. Notices of Intent are due in early March and proposals in early May, which seems unrealistically early in view of the launch schedule. See http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/oss/nra/98-oss-03/A48.htm.