Status Report April 3rd 1991

Satellite Status

Solar flare activity has enlarged the radiation belts and increased the PSPC background. This caused the loss of a few days (between ~ March 25th- 27th) of observations because the PSPC count rate went over the danger level and the PSPC high voltages had to be reduced.

Adjustments to the tolerances have lead to resumed operations, with 80% of the pre-flare efficiency.

SASS Update:

Acronyms:

SDPS-Standard Data Processing System (at Goddard)
MPE-Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics (Garching, Germany)
SAO-Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory (Cambridge)
GSOC-German Space Operations Center (Weilheim, Germany)
HRI4_0-Version 4 of the High Resolution Imager Software written by SAO
SASS-Scientific Analysis Software System written by MPE
FITS-Flexible Image Transport System
MDR-Master Data Record (Raw data tapes from GSOC)
PSPC-Position Sensitive Proportional Counter
V&V-Verification and Validation

SAO has sent HRI4_0 (the latest release of the HRI portion of the SASS software) to MPE for integration into the new SASS release. SAO sent this via express mail on March 15, 1991 as planned. We expect MPE to send the production version of SASS, which includes HRI4_0., by April 5th.

The processing team has completed a week long end-to-end test of the SDPS that began March 25, 1991. The goals of the end-to-end test were to thoroughly test and benchmark all SDPS procedures. These procedures included: MDR tape ingest, SASS processing, FITS conversion, data V&V, creation of distribution tapes, archiving to and retrieval of data from the optical jukebox and the ROSAT databank. During this period, 7 ROSAT days of PSPC pointed observations from the verification phase were used.

A full analysis of the test results and their impact is currently under way.

The SDPS continues to find and report problems in reading MDR tapes. So far we have discovered 9 of 27 PSPC MDR tapes checked that required reproducing/resending by GSOC. This is an alarmingly large percentage.

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