POLAR Telecon Agenda for September 29, 2006
Agenda:
0. Upcoming Polar Telecon
1. Operations
2. AGU Special Session
3. Polar SWT Meeting
4. MFE Data Processing Status
5. TIMAS Science Report
0. Upcoming Polar Telecon
Friday, September 29, 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/2006Sept29/
Future Polar Telecons
Next telecon: Friday October 27, 2006
Future Telecon Science Discussion Schedule
[Errors/omissions/preferences to: nicola.fox@jhuapl.edu]
October 27, 2006: EFI
November 2006: Hydra
December 2006: MFE
January 2007: CEPPAD
February 2007: TIDE
March 2007: PIXIE
April 2007: SEPS
May 2007: UVI
June 2007: MDI
July 2007: CAMMICE
August 2007: VIS
September 2007: TIMAS
1. Operations
If you have any concerns about Polar operations, please contact Nicky Fox (nicola.fox@jhuapl.edu)
Eclipse Operations
The Fall eclipse season ended September 07 (DOY 250). The longest eclipses were about 82 minutes (on 8/22/06 – DOY 234). No problems occurred during the eclipse period.
Unattended Weekends
The FOT is intending to implement ROBOTT release 5.0 (that automates sending the daily Stored Command Table) and transition to unattended weekends. Unattended weekends are expected to start September 30.
The 12 hour shifts during the weekdays will still be covered as usual and the MOC staff will have 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.
Please email Nicky (nicola.fox@jhuapl.edu) with your instrument requirements for this (very sad) period – so far we have heard from only 3 teams
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 97.0% for the last week, 94.8% for the last month, and 89.7% cumulative for the year.
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.
2/9/2006 – 5/13/2006
12/4/2005 – 2/5/2006
7/3/2005 – 10/2/2005
3/6/2005 – 4/17/2005
1/23/2005 – 2/27/2005
12/05/2004 – 1/16/2005
7/04/2004 – 10/10/2004
3/7/2004 – 4/18/2004
1/11/2004 – 2/29/2004
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
Sun Angle Maneuver
The next Polar maneuver is tentatively 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.
2. AGU Special Session
We submitted a proposal for a special session at the Spring 2007 AGU which will be held in
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. MFE Data Processing Status
5. The TIMAS Science Report
PDF
or
PowerPoint
