P009056 Page 1 PROGRESS REPORT THE SOLAR-A SOFT X-RAY TELESCOPE (SXT) PROGRAM (CONTRACT NAS8-37334) (for the month of October, 1991) OVERVIEW The SOLAR-A Mission is a program of the Institute of Space and Astronautical Science (ISAS), the Japanese agency for scientific space activity. The SOLAR-A satellite was launched on August 30, 1991 from Kagoshima Space Center (KSC) in Japan, and renamed Yohkoh. The purpose of this mission is to study high energy phenomena in solar flares. Under an international cooperative agreement, Lockheed, under NASA contract, is providing a scientific investigation using the Soft X-ray Telescope (SXT), one of the primary experiments of the mission. The SXT was developed by Lockheed in cooperation with the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan, and the Institute for Astronomy of the University of Tokyo. MAJOR ACTIVITIES IN THE MONTH The crew at ISAS has continued the development of skills in receiving and analyzing the data, and in participation in SXT and spacecraft operations. The ability to view the data successfully is improving daily, and the crew is working very hard to create movies, for instance. The better that they can observe the results of the data collection process, the better they will be able to plan an experiment that will lead to new knowledge. The SXT and spacecraft operations are very strenuous because the process is very labor intensive and subject to error. Since the communication to Kagoshima Space Center (KSC), where the commands are sent up, are totally in Japanese, this makes it very difficult for the non-Japanese speaking person to participate. The crew is investing an effort to improve the command creation process, so that it is not so error prone, and in the improvement, reduce the intensity of the labor required. On October 7, 1991, Sam Freeland and Tim Roethig traveled to ISAS to participate in software updating, and computer network improvements, repairs, and enhancements. On October 9, 1991, Greg Slater also traveled to ISAS to work with Roethig and the rest of the crew to get some network hardware and software up and running. This effort should have given the team in Japan the ability to view video movies of the data, but the equipment supplied by a vendor for video processing has continued to not function correctly. On October 14-17, the SXT operations were discontinued while some work was done on the attitude control of the satellite. This work required the full use of the telemetry, and thus operations could not successfully continue. Some of the crew took some time off, and others worked to clear-up the software environment which has been undergoing major changes as development continued, and as changes and corrections materialized. P009056 Page 2 The data continues to be very exciting, and the instrument performance is every much as good as expected. The ability to view the solar phenomena with this excellent tool bodes very well for future understanding of the physics involved with the sun. The crew has continued to developed the ability to make video movies, and has been somewhat successful. On October 21-23, there was a science meeting held at ISAS, with the crew at ISAS, Drs. Marilyn Bruner and Keith Strong in attendance, as well as some of the co-investigators. There was good attendance from the Japanese community as well. The meeting helped to define the future of scientific planning. On October 24, a report was sent to LPARL indicating that the images obtained through the Aspect Sensor optical system are decreased in intensity from what was observed initially. This phenomenon has been continuing for some time, and appears to be a linear effect. It is restricted to the optical image, and is not seen in the x-ray image. First estimates indicate that if it continues at the present rate the Aspect Sensor would be blind in about six months. The light through the Aspect Sensor is used for two function. One of these is the images that come from this system, and provide a reference to what the sun is doing in visible light. The other function is the illumination of the CCD Detector with blue light to heal the damage done to the CCD by the x-ray impingement. Given the time available, the loss of visible light images is a setback but not catastrophic. The loss of healing of the CCD Detector is a worse situation, but is difficult to quantize because the x-ray effect on the CCD and the healing process are not well quantized. On the bright side, on October 24th, Yohkoh captured its first X-class flare. The flare flag worked and all instruments acquired good data. The hard x-ray data are superb and the SXT data set is magnificent. The SXT observed the flare precursor and right through to well into the decay with excellent exposures, several filters and 2.5 arcsec resolution. There was a white light flare observed with the Aspect Sensor. Coordinated observing data analysis is to be pursued. The SXT also experienced another Single Event Upset on October 25th. The usual hard reset and RAM patch fixed everything up as good as new. During the final week, Dr. Acton reviewed the data with respect to loss of Aspect Sensor light transmission. Since the start of the mission, it appears that the wide band transmission has dropped by 33%, the narrow band transmission has dropped 29%, and the diffuser has dropped 22%. After data review, it appears that the loss is definitely linked to loss of transmission through the front end assembly. Solar Space Astronomy has some history of telescopes loosing transmission through the optics, and conclusions in the past have indicated that deposits of offgassed materials are the culprit. At this point, review of other ways that this manifestation could occur are being considered. P009056 Page 3 During this week Mr. Mons Morrison, and Dr. James Lemen have been here at LPARL. They came back to handle the local situation regarding both work and their personal lives. Mr. Morrison, who has been responsible for the development of the Data Reformatter software, has gotten that package working very well. It needs some further work, but is nicely advanced. The Reformatter takes all the various sources of data, and puts them into a common database that all experimenters may access and use. Dr. Lemen returned with a lot of data, including images, that he presented at a seminar. Included in his presentation was an early video movie. It is fascinating to watch the sun revolve while seeing it in x-ray image. He also brought back the expenditure data for furnishing the program's apartments to hand in to the financial people for update. While he and Mr. Morrison were here, a software meeting was held to exchange information and plans on continuing data analysis and reduction software development. Mr. Morrison has returned to ISAS already. At LPARL, we are continuing to handle the planning for staffing the operations at ISAS next year. This is an essential activity, and needs to be done very far in advance so that people can plan for the time away. Also at LPARL, and at ISAS, the team continues to work on the software development. The following is a software status report by Mr. S. Freeland. SXT Software Status - November 1, 1991 Reformatter: The reformatter is now run routinely on all Solar-A data. Good progress was made last month to automate the transfer of raw telemetry data from the Sirius data base to the LPARL workstation where the reformatter is run. Review of the reformatted data since launch has led to some refinement of the data base contents. The data base definitions and associated reformatter modules for SXT, WBS, and HXT are 99% complete. Further enhancements for the BCS reformatter module are anticipated as the BCS flight software has undergone some post launch modifications. Additional reformatter work is required to incorporate the processed pointing information into the reformatted data base once the pointing secondary data base (NEC generated) has stabilized. Analysis: Now that the data is flowing, feedback from the users of the data base access and analysis software is providing useful input to the analysis system. In some cases, this has led to revisions of existing software and identified some areas where additional work is anticipated. The current status of the analysis is reflected in the tables below. For continuity, these are revisions of the tables generated during the MODA review in June, 1991. Note that as used here, a module is an upper level task which was identified in the Software Control Document (Rev 1, 1/15/91) and generally is comprised of multiple software modules. P009056 Page 4 Category #Modules Instrument Spatial Response 7 Insrument Sensitivity 6 CCD Corrections 6 SpatialRegistration/Projection 8 Other Image Processing 2 Data Base Access 9 Ground Based Observatories 17 -- Total 55 Status by and Scheduled Release Date Scheduled Release Date Phase 8/1/91 9/30/91 12/30/91 Sub Total Req & Prelim Design 0 3 12 15 Final Design & Code 0 2 1 3 Module Verif & Test 0 4 0 4 System Verif & Test 0 6 0 6 Release 19 8 0 27 Sub Total 19 23 13 55 Although it appears that modules intended to be released by 9/30/91 are behind schedule, which they are to some extend, preliminary versions of the modules are in use daily. They are functioning quite well, until such time as the released versions come into use. P009056 Page 5 PROBLEMS AND SCHEDULE WORKAROUND/IMPACTS Other than the closure of some programmatic issues, there are no further problems and schedule workarounds. PLANS FOR NOVEMBER, 1991 1. Continue to complete the document package. 2. Continue the Data Analysis and Reduction software development effort. 3. Continue mission operations and data analysis at ISAS. 4. Perform a life test of the Aspect Sensor door mechanism. Respectfully submitted, Michael L. Finch P009056 Page 6 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- UNIVERSITY OF HAWAII ACTIVITY REPORT (DR. R. CANFIELD) MAJOR ACTIVITIES FOR THE MONTHS OF SEPTEMBER AND OCTOBER Our most important Yohkoh activities were personnel actions, Yohkoh operations, Mees observations, software and hardware development, and meetings. Mees Solar Observatory has a new superintendent, Tony Distasio, who brings many years of experience in optics and electronics on Haleakala to his new job. Previous superintendent Wayne Lu has been promoted to Assistant Director for Haleakala Development, after many years of devoted service to the Observatory. While these positions are not funded by the Yohkoh subcontract, they have a profound influence on our ability to get the job done. Congratulations are in order to Yohkoh research assistant K. D. Leka, who passed her Ph. D. qualifying examinations! We also welcome entering graduate student Jun Chen, who started as the second Yohkoh research assistant in mid-September, bringing the Yohkoh project at UH to full strength. In mid-September Mees Observatory started direct operational support of Yohkoh -- telescope operations by observers Daryl Koon, Garry Nitta, and Dave Judd and scientific support by duty scientists Canfield, Leka, Metcalf, and Wuelser. They worked with Hudson to establish procedures for coordinated Mees/Yohkoh observations, taking into account pointing and Yohkoh day/night cycles. They used the Yohkoh reformatted data base for scheduling Mees observations and for first look comparisons of co-observed data. Hudson supported Yohkoh operations at ISAS. This typically includes telemetry monitoring, command generation, and SXT observing table construction. The improvement of systems for operations and data management has also been a major activity during the first two months. A system for reporting Yohkoh observing status to Mees has been set up, although considerable improvement is needed. At the request of the YSC, Hudson has put together some ideas for a Yohkoh newsletter that could help to systematize things. Scientific data analysis during this period has been restricted largely to items essential for operations work and for understanding instrument performance. Hudson's effort in this area has concentrated on analysis of the aspect camera data. An early success of coordinated Mees/Yohkoh observing was 10 successive days (Sep 26 - Oct 6) of vector magnetograms of NOAA AR 6850/53, the first major solar active region observed by Yohkoh across the observed hemisphere. The Mees staff also succeeded in obtaining simultaneous observations of the first major Yohkoh flare on Oct 24th. Wuelser did the preliminary data analysis of the first co-observed Yohkoh/Mees flare, a C6 event on October 11, with both H-alpha MCCD and vector magnetogram data from Mees. A directory (/scr/yohkoh/int_events on koa.ifa.hawaii.edu) has been set up of interesting co-observed events. P009056 Page 7 Mickey and Weber obtained the first images and spectral scans with the IVM. However, the instrument is still at least two months from initial operation, despite a great deal of hard work. Several problems were discovered or arose during the report period: stray light around the geometry camera, a spectral leak in the blocking filter, a mounting problem with the liquid crystal shutters, temperature sensitivity of the variable retarders, and failures of critical components -- the disk drive and the image motion compensation mirror. In all cases, solutions have been identified, and the necessary repairs and/or procurements are underway. Sheinis and Hieda completed the development of the H-alpha video coronagraph, which will be operated all day in a one-frame-per-second time-lapse video mode that images most of one solar limb with 2.5" pixels, exceeding SXT at full spatial resolution. Work continues on the recorder and camera for the Fe XIII 5303 video coronagraph, although the high sky brightness at the present time (typically 100 millionths since Mt. Pinatubo's eruption) makes the 5303 capability moot. A wide variety of software work was done. Metcalf made improvements to the analysis software that computes vertical currents from magnetograms and to the software which writes the magnetograms into FITS files. Kiernan developed software to print active region maps at ISAS and developed autologging of the MCCD and Stokes for SPAM. Metcalf set up automatic transmission of magnetograms from Mees to ISAS. Metcalf automated IDL analysis software exchange from ISAS to Manoa. Wuelser transported the software for MCCD quality control to Mees observatory. Hudson revised his software for finding the SXT white-light limb and used it for various purposes, and demonstrated the feasibility of the forward method for HXT image reconstruction. Schedules were developed for the one-month visits to Japan by all UH Yohkoh science team members during 1992, as well as those for duty scientist rotation at Mees for the rest of 1991. Canfield and Hudson attended the Yohkoh Science Committee meeting and presented early co-aligned images of a simple flare and described access to Mees magnetograms and the Mees data catalog, via SPAM. PLANS FOR NOVEMBER AND DECEMBER Wuelser, Metcalf, Leka, and Canfield will serve as Yohkoh duty scientists at Mees for one week per month. Hudson will help with Yohkoh operations at ISAS. Metcalf will carry out the analysis of Mees/SXT data for AR6850/AR6853, including coalignment between vertical current maps and SXT images, and evaluate the suitability of their SXT observing sequences for such studies in the future. Wuelser will continue to update and document MCCD data analysis software, and work on co-observed flare events, starting with the Oct 24 white light flare, also evaluating the suitability of the Oct 24th SXT observing tables for such studies in the future. Hudson will work on software to determine the X-ray and optical limbs, restore the "low 8 bit" aspect sensor information, and apply forward methods to HXT data. Mickey and Weber will work on the IVM, to try to get it in operation by the end of the year. Leka and Canfield will work on the papers on co-aligned vertical currents and P009056 Page 8 particle precipitation. Leka will start to define a satisfactory thesis topic that uses Mees and Yohkoh data. Chen will learn procedures for reducing and analyzing MCCD data. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT BERKELEY YOHKOH/SXT PROGRESS REPORT (NOVEMBER 6, 1991) S. Kane, J. McTiernan and J. Loran traveled to Japan for the Oct. 21st Co-I meeting. They met with the WBS team to discuss collaboration on software tools development. It was decided that the software written by J. McTiernan and J. Loran would be optimized to suit the analysis of Yohkoh WBS data. A time frame of two-to-three months for this was given, in which one of the Berkeley team will travel to Japan to do the necessary work. Also, at the Co-I meeting, J. McTiernan and J. Loran gave talks on the work they have been doing. J. McTiernan presented his work on fitting temperature and emission measures to SXT data with two filter images. The reliability of these measurments was also discussed. This work will be presented as an SXT Calibration Note which will be completed in December. J. Loran presented his work on a light curve analysis program that will be included with the Yohkoh data analysis tools distribution. M. Morrison came to Berkeley and installed the first version of the Yohkoh reformatted data analysis software. The software was successfully tested on our Sun workstations, and we are beginning to look at some of the sample data that was supplied. P009056 Page 9 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- STANFORD UNIVERSITY (DR. P. STURROCK) YOHKOH / SXT ACTIVITY REPORT STANFORD TEAM September/October, 1991 During the past two months, we have begun to examine SXT images and to familiarize ourselves with IDL. Jim Klimchuk attended the Yohkoh Science and Science Planning Meeting that was held at ISAS on October 21-23. During the Wednesday morning session, he presented two science topics: "Observing Coronal Mass Ejections With Yohkoh" and "The Thickness Variation Along Individual Coronal Loops." He later formed collaborations on these topics with several Japanese and American colleagues. Klimchuk spent four additional days at ISAS, where he learned many of the details of the SXT data structure and analysis software. (He is grateful to those who were so helpful in this regard!) He participated in an informal meeting of the SXT group, where he described some of the other research topics of interest to Stanford: the time variation of energy input to coronal loops; the geometry of coronal loop cross-sections; the relationship of flares and X-ray enhancements to separatrix surfaces in the coronal magnetic field; and the morphology of gradual flares. On October 29, Mons Morrison kindly visited Stanford to install Yohkoh analysis software in a file structure resembling that on the Lockheed ISASS# machines at ISAS. During the next two months, we plan to begin a serious analysis of SXT images. P009056 Page 10 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- SOLAR PHYSICS RESEARCH CORPORATION (KAREN L. HARVEY) Solar Physics Research Corporation Activity Report Karen L. Harvey November 7, 1991 October's activity has involved a trip to Japan to attend a meeting for Yohkoh Science and Scientific Operations, held October 21-23 at ISAS, Sagamihara. During this visit it was possible to look at SXT imaged data - to get a feel for the type of data being taken and to see the myriad of activity Yohkoh was observing. Among the structures visible in the SXT images were X-ray bright points (BPs). The low numbers of such structures was not a surprise, since at this time of the cycle, it was expected there would not be many. However, the detection of X-ray bright points was an important milestone before proceeding with detailed plans for an observing and analysis program to answer many basic questions about these small scale structures. A study was discussed and outlined in a small, informal meeting between Nariaki Nitta, Shimizu, Keith Strong, and I on October 24. During our discussion, a plan of action was established to use initially existing SXT full frame images (5" spatial resolution and with the Al14 and noback filters) to identify and measure several characteristics of BPs, such as (a) location and position relative to large scale structures, such as coronal holes, complexes of activity, quiet Sun, filament channels, etc.; (b) size, temperature/emission measure - using ratio of suitable filters; (c) lifetime - using extended sequence of SXT images, follow BP, identifying time of emergence and decay, and (d) relation to evolving photospheric magnetic field, using NSO full-disk magnetograms. Important to this is the determination of an objective definition of a BP to provide a better quantization and consistency of the parameters we will be observing, measuring, and interpreting. Defining a BP in the images was explored by Keith Strong and I in the couple of days following the Science meeting; based on this, Keith will write an IDL routine that will provide many of the measurements in an objective manner. It is the goal of this initial research study to write a paper within 6 months to be included as part of the first publications from Yohkoh. P009056 Page 11 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- NASA REPORT DOCUMENTATION PAGE (IN LIEU OF NASA FORM 1626) --------------------|--------------------------|-------------------------------- 1. REPORT NO. | 2. GOVERNMENT | 3. RECIPIENT'S DR-01 | ACCESSION NO. | CATALOG NO. --------------------|--------------------------|-------------------------------- 4. TITLE AND SUBTITLE | 5. REPORT DATE Monthly progress report - for the month of | November 8, 1991 October, 1991. |-------------------------------- | 6. PERFORMING ORGANIZATION | CODE: O/91-30 -----------------------------------------------|-------------------------------- 7. AUTHOR(S) | 8. PERFORMING ORGANIZA- M. L. Finch | TION REPORT NO: P009056 |-------------------------------- -----------------------------------------------|10. WORK UNIT NO. 9. PERFORMING ORGANIZATION NAME AND ADDRESS | Lockheed Palo Alto Research Labs B/252 |-------------------------------- Solar & Astrophysics Laboratory O/91-30 |11. CONTRACT OR GRANT NO. 3251 Hanover Street, Palo Alto Ca. 94304 | NAS8 - 37334 -----------------------------------------------|-------------------------------- 12. SPONSORING AGENCY NAME AND ADDRESS |13. TYPE OF REPORT AND Marshall Space Flight Center (Explorer Program)| PERIOD COVERED Huntsville Alabama 35812 | Progress report - Nov. 8, '91 | For the month of Oct, 1991 |-------------------------------- |14. SPONSORING AGENCY | CODE MSFC / AP32 -----------------------------------------------|-------------------------------- 15. SUPPLEMENTARY NOTES -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 16. ABSTRACT The SOLAR-A Mission is a program of the Institute of Space and Astronautical Science (ISAS), the Japanese agency for scientific space activity. The SOLAR-A satellite was launched on August 30, 1991 to study high energy phenomena in solar flares. As an international cooperative agreement, Lockheed, under NASA contract, is providing a scientific investigation and has prepared the Soft X-ray Telescope (SXT), one of the two primary experiments of the mission. --------------------------------------|----------------------------------------- 17. KEY WORDS (SUGGESTED BY | 18. DISTRIBUTION STATEMENT AUTHOR(S)) Solar-A, X-ray, CCD, | Space Science, Solar Physics ------------------------|-------------|----------|-----------------|------------ 19. SECURITY CLASSIF. | 20. SECURITY CLASSIF. | 21. NO OF PAGES |22. PRICE (OF THIS REPORT) | (OF THIS PAGE) | | None | None | 11 | ------------------------|------------------------|-----------------|------------ For sale by: Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C. 20402-0001 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ No. Delivered From Subject Lines 6 Nov 6 15:36 POSTMAN [From: >> Monday, Nov 11, 1991 9:25 AM PST