POLAR Telecon Agenda for October 27, 2006

POLAR Telecon Agenda for October 27, 2006

Agenda:

0. Upcoming Polar Telecon

1. Operations

2. AGU Special Session

3. Polar SWT Meeting

4. Sun-Earth Connection Virtual Conference Series, Session 1: November 13-17, 2006

5. MFE Data Processing Status

6. EFI Science Report

0. Upcoming Polar Telecon

Friday October 27, 2006

4 pm ET, 3 pm CT, 2 pm MT, 1 pm PT

PIs and their designated representatives will be telephoned at their usual numbers.

Other participants may call in at:

1-888-606-9536, Password POLAR TELCON

(Leader: John Sigwarth)

The web site for the final agenda will be:

http://pwg.gsfc.nasa.gov/polar/telecons/2006Oct27/

Future Polar Telecons

Next telecon: Friday December 1, 2006

Future Telecon Science Discussion Schedule

[Errors/omissions/preferences to: nicola.fox@jhuapl.edu]

December 2006: Hydra

January 2006: MFE

February 2007: CEPPAD

March 2007: TIDE

April 2007: PIXIE

May 2007: SEPS

June 2007: UVI

July 2007: MDI

August 2007: CAMMICE

September 2007: VIS

October 2007: TIMAS

November 2007: EFI

1. Operations

If you have any concerns about Polar operations, please contact Nicky Fox (nicola.fox@jhuapl.edu)

Sun Angle Maneuver

The next Polar maneuver has been scheduled for November 6, 2006. We expect to use ~ 0.3 kg of fuel with 1.5 kg estimated currently in the tanks. It is not clear how much of the remaining 1.5 kg is usable for maneuvers.

POLAR Spin Axis Adjust - Maneuver #9 Nov 6, 2006

PRE-MANEUVER

307/ UVI 16:40 (close door) D66/16:30 - 18:40 SCI Mode-1

307/ VIS 17:00 (HV off) D66/16:30 - 18:40 "

310/ HYDRA 11:40 (HV off) D46/11:30 - 15:30

310/ TIDE 11:50 (HV off) "

310/ TIMAS 12:00 (HV off) "

310/ MAN tlm. 12:47 D46/11:30 - 15:30

Att. trim 13:30 - 13:55 (~25 min) "

S/C reconfig. 13:55 - 14:25 "

SCI tlm 14:25 "

POST-MANEUVER

310/ TIMAS 14:30 (HV ramp) D46/11:30 - 15:30

310/ Available D46/22:00 - 00:40

311/ HYDRA 16:25 - 16:55(HV on) D46/16:15 - 17:15 SCI Mode-1

312/ UVI 16:10 - 16:40(open door) D46/16:00 - 18:30 SCI Mode-1

312/ VIS 16:50 - 18:20(Earth cam.) " "

313/ TIDE 18:20 - 19:20(HV ramp) D66/18:10 - 21:40 SCI Mode-1

313/ VIS 19:30 - 21:30(Earth cam/load) " "

314/ VIS 12:30 - 13:30(if necessary) D46/12:30 - 13:30

314/ VIS 20:00 - 20:40(if necessary) D46/19:50 - 20:50

317/ Available D66/16:00 - 17:40 SCI Mode-1

317/ Available D46/21:10 - 22:10 SCI Mode-1

318/ Available D46/14:30 - 17:50 SCI Mode-1

319/ Available D46/12:30 - 16:55

320/ Available D66/16:40 - 17:40

320/ Available D46/22:45 - 23:45

321/ Available D46/16:00 - 18:30

Unattended Weekends

The FOT has implemented ROBOTT release 5.0 (that automates sending the daily Stored Command Table) and transitioned to unattended weekends. No problems have been reported since this change has been made.

The 12 hour shifts during the weekdays are still being covered as usual and the MOC staff has a pager to cover emergencies on the weekend.

MOC staff pager: 301-224-0386

Mike Machado should be contacted by cell phone for instrument emergencies.

Mike's cell phone: 443-694-4317

End of Mission Operations

Sadly all good things must come to an end, and our wonderful Polar mission is no exception. It is a fact that our fuel will be exhausted in the very near future and we need to plan for our end of mission. The FOT is currently working on an operations plan for this period and we need to let them know if there are any specific instrument tests/modes/operations that you would like to implement in the last few days of the mission. For example, operation at extreme temperatures or maximum voltage levels.

If you have not already done so, please email Nicky (nicola.fox@jhuapl.edu) with your instrument requirements for this (very sad) period

Data capture

We are continuing to use the hemispherical antennas for aspect angles between 0-60 degrees in addition to the belt antennas for spacecraft communications. With the new operations configurations, we have achieved significantly higher data quality despite poor aspect angles with overall data capture rising again to 96.5% for the last week, 97.5% for the last month, and 90.3% cumulative for the calendar year. The FOT personnel deserve our thanks for this achievement.

Polar Attitude Determination Error

Reminder: The FDF has reprocessed the 12-week periods centered on the February and August high attitude error times in reverse time order.

02/09/2006 - 05/13/2006

12/04/2005 - 02/05/2006

07/03/2005 - 10/02/2005

03/06/2005 - 04/17/2005

01/23/2005 - 02/27/2005

12/05/2004 - 01/16/2005

07/04/2004 - 10/10/2004

03/07/2004 - 04/18/2004

01/11/2004 - 02/29/2004

The new sun angle drift plot, based on the new data can be viewed at http://pwg.gsfc.nasa.gov/polar/telecons/2006Aug25/sun_angle_june_2006.jpg

2. AGU Special Session

We submitted a proposal for a special session at the Spring 2007 AGU which will be held in Acapulco, Mexico.

Advances in understanding of magnetospheric physics during the Polar mission era

The Polar spacecraft mission was initiated to study the flow of energy and particles into and through the magnetosphere. The Polar spacecraft has acquired observations of electric and magnetic fields, low and high energy plasmas and particles, and images of the auroras for nearly a complete solar cycle from solar minimum through solar maximum and back again. These measurements have been combined with observations from the other components of the Heliophysics Great Observatory and ground-based experiments to produce a more complete understanding of the workings of the magnetosphere immersed in the solar wind and tied to the ionosphere. These advances include topics such as the magnetopause, reconnection, radiation belts, geomagnetic storms, substorms, cusp regions, auroras and the ionosphere. As the Polar spacecraft nears the end of its operational life, it is timely to review what has been learned and what open questions remain to be answered by future missions.

In this session we solicit presentations and posters on the advances in our understanding of magnetospheric physics made possible by the Polar mission in conjunction with the Heliophysics great observatory.

3. Polar SWT Meeting

The Polar mission operations are currently scheduled to finish on Monday, April 2, 2007 and at this time it is anticipated that the spacecraft will be decommissioned. We would like to hold a science workshop in conjunction with these milestone spacecraft operations. In addition, there will be a small gathering of PIs in the control room when the last command is sent to the spacecraft. We would then have the science meeting on the following 2 days.

4. Sun-Earth Connection Virtual Conference Series, Session 1:

November 13-17, 2006

A virtual conference has been planned in an effort to construct the most complete picture possible of the sun-Earth system during selected events described below. Analyses of the Polar data are important to the success of this innovative virtual conference. We encourage everyone to support this activity to the maximum extent possible.

GRAND CHALLENGE SCIENCE FOCUS: Explore the state of the sun-Earth system during extreme space weather. “Return to the Auroral Oval for the 50th Anniversary of the International Geophysical Year”.

SPONSORS: CAWSES, IHY, eGY, ICESTAR, NASA/LWS, NSF, and the SEE organizers

WHAT’S NEW: The IMAGE spacecraft observed the development of a large-scale auroral spiral on the dawnside of the auroral oval and a long-duration finger-like structure on the duskside in the southern hemisphere during intense substorms in the main phase of severe magnetic storms on 15 May and 24 August 2005. The unusual features, reported here, are absent during substorms occurring at other phases of the storms, which do not show any dramatic activity in the dawn to noon sector. To our knowledge, neither of these structures has been previously reported as a feature of auroral substorms. Similar structures have now been found on the dawnside during substorms in the main phases of 4 other superstorms in 2003-2004 (29-30 Oct 2003, 20 Nov 2003, 07-08 Nov 2004 and 09-10 Nov 2004)

IMPLICATIONS: Since large-scale auroral emissions generally mirror the structure and movement of source regions in geospace, these unusual auroral structures may imply new features during extreme space weather conditions in: (1) the magnetospheric configuration, (2) solar wind-magnetosphere coupling, (3) storm-substorm coupling, and/or (4) stormtime energy dissipation mechanisms. They raise questions about the aspects of the solar sources and heliospheric propagation capable of driving such extreme conditions, in particular aspects introduced by the interaction between active regions and coronal holes. They also motivate a search for associated features throughout geospace and in the ionosphere-atmosphere from pole to equator. Join us in a worldwide effort to combine observations and identify sun-to-Earth science focus areas.

SCHEDULE:

Nov 13-17, 2006, PART 1: International Data Exchange and Sun-to-Earth Science Issues.

JOINT SESSIONS WITH: CAWSES International Workshop on Space Weather Modeling (CSWM), Yokohama, Japan

Mid 2007. PART 2: Theory, Modeling and Simulations of Extreme Space Weather

WORKSHOP URL: http://workshops.jhuapl.edu/s1/index.html. Contains basic information on the events for the conference along with an incomplete list of associated Sun-Earth system science questions. Describes the features of the online conference. Please check back frequently for updates. REGISTRATION IS OPEN NOW

FOUR WAYS TO PARTICIPATE: (1) join a worldwide effort to construct the most complete picture possible of the sun-to-Earth system by submitting an online presentations of satellite or ground-based observations during the focus events, (2) contribute global data products, data sets, virtual observatory links, etc. for the information commons, (3) view presentations; contribute to online discussions about key sun-to-earth issues, and about possible modeling efforts; establish collaborations for follow-on theoretical and modeling studies; enhance graduate student access to international and interdisciplinary collaborations (4) help to test and improve features of online conference software to develop a new option for scientific communication as part of the International Heliophysical Year.