News by Date
News by Category
Solar System
Stars
White Dwarfs
Supernovas
Neutron Stars
Black Holes
Milky Way Galaxy
Normal Galaxies
Quasars
Galaxy Clusters
Cosmology/Deep Field
Miscellaneous
Press Resources
Status Reports
Press Advisories
Image Releases
Release Guidelines
Image Use Policy
NASA TV
Biographies/Interviews
Web Shortcuts
Chandra Blog
RSS Feed
Chronicle
Email Newsletter
News & Noteworthy
Image Use Policy
Questions & Answers
Glossary of Terms
Download Guide
Get Adobe Reader
Chandra @ NASA
Visit the Chandra pages at the NASA portal (opens in new window)
Image Use
Image Use Policy & Request Form
Guidelines for utilizing images, applets, movies, and animations featured in this Web Site.
Operations CXO Status Report

Friday 6 August 2004 9.30am EDT

During the last week the observing schedule was interrupted on July 30 due to a high radiation event on belt entry. The event stopped the daily load and activated the science instrument safing sequence (SCS 107). All actions were nominal and loads were restarted restarted at 4.30 pm on Jul 30. An observation of G351.2+0.1 (total 3.7Ks) was impacted by the event.

A real-time contingency procedure was required following the high radiation event on July 30 since Chandra was approaching an eclipse and the loads were halted. Real-time procedures were run on July 30 to place the spacecraft in normal sun mode and execute the proper commanding for eclipse passage. A procedure to recover to normal pointing mode was completed nominally on July 31. Loads were resumed at 11:17pm on July 13 however a facility UPS power system failure resulted in a missed pass and the next set of loads were not uplinked. Facility functionality was restored and loads were resumed at 1:53am on Aug 2 following a replan. SCS 107 was executed at 2:15pm on Aug 1 (the first comm opportunity) to ensure a safe instrument configuration in the event loads could not be uplinked. Observations of 4U 1957+11 and Vega were impacted by the event (total 69.1 Ks) and will be rescheduled.

Chandra passed through the final eclipse of the 2004 summer season with nominal power and thermal performance.

An image release was made on Aug 4 of an observation of the gamma ray burster GRB 031203. The Chandra observation together with other space and ground-based data indicate that the GRB radiated only a fraction of the energy of a normal gamma ray burst, but still produced more energy than a supernova. For details see: http://chandra.harvard.edu/photo/2004/grb031203/

The schedule of targets for the next week is shown below and includes an observation of V 4641 Srg coordinated with the VLA.

------------------------------------------
SN 2004dj              ACIS-S       Aug 9
MACS0025.4-1222        ACIS-I
V 4641 Sgr             ACIS-S
1E0657-56              ACIS-I       Aug 10
Radiation Belts
1E0657-56              ACIS-I       Aug 11
2dF Selected Group     ACIS-I       Aug 12
SGR 1806-20            ACIS-S       Aug 13
Radiation Belts
1E0657-56              ACIS-I       Aug 14
RCS2156.7-0448         ACIS-S       Aug 15
1E0657-56              ACIS-I

------------------------------------------

All spacecraft subsystems continued to support nominal operations.

Return to Status Reports