Chandra Operations CXO Status Report 24 May 2002

During the last week the observing schedule was interrupted following a high radiation event at 5:58am EDT on May 23 that stopped the daily load and activated the science instrument safing sequence (SCS 107). All actions were nominal and radiation levels dropped sufficiently to allow the loads to be restarted at 7.45am on May 24. A total of 93Ks of the observation of Sgr A* was impacted by the event.

A Chandra image release was made on May 22 showing a “true color” image of the supernova remnant N132D. The impressive image and further details about the SNR can be found at: http://chandra.harvard.edu/photo/2002/0050/index.html

Of note this week were visits to the OCC by Dr. Jan Davis, Director, Flight Projects Directorate, MSFC and Mr. Bruce Dauer, Director of the Smithsonian Institution Office of Planning, Management and Budget, and next week by Mr. Alphonso Diaz, Director, GSFC.

The observing schedule for the next week is shown below and includes a continuation of the long observation of Sgr A* and an observation of AD Leo coordinated with the Hubble Space Telescope.

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Radiation Belts                      May 27
Sgr A*                 ACIS-I        May 28
X1624-490              HRC-I         May 29
IM Nor                 ACIS-S
Radiation Belts                      May 30
V426 Oph               ACIS-S/HETG
NGC 4038/NGC 4039      ACIS-S        May 31
AD Leo                 ACIS-S/HETG   Jun 1
FTM0906+4952           ACIS-S
Radiation Belts
NGC 4459               ACIS-S        Jun 2
HS 1417+4722           ACIS-S
H162657                ACIS-I
M31 (5 obs)            HRC-I
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All spacecraft subsystems continued to operate nominally.