Page 1 PROGRESS REPORT THE SOLAR-A SOFT X-RAY TELESCOPE (SXT) PROGRAM (CONTRACT NAS8-37334) (for the month of July, 1993) 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 << Solar Activity and Observation Planning >> SXT continued to work well, during a month that began with very low levels of activity but has picked up a little towards the end. The biggest GOES event was C2.3! SXT operations could be described as routine. During the week of 17-Jul through 24-Jul, the main organizational activity week was the coordinated observation with the EISCAT facility in Norway and the VLA. The chief object of those observations was to use the combination of scintillation, radio, and X-ray data to characterize the quiet corona. The main players outside Yohkoh were Coles (UCSD), Esser, Habbal, and Karovska (CFA), Kojima and Misawa (STElab), and Markkanen (EISCAT). The observing campaign on July 23-24 coincided with the weekly offpoint exercise for Yohkoh, and we have images showing the development of the southern coronal hole at the east limb just in time to arrive at one of the specific regions of interest for the VLA observations. << Campaigns >> There are several joint observing campaigns scheduled over the month, summarized here: Campaign Dates Proposer SXT/CO SXT/Coord Special Ops EISCAT/VLA 22-Jul-93 R. Esser (CFA) Hudson Hudson Image ftp 23-Jul-93 Norikura 27-Jul-93 K. Ichimoto (NAOJ) Hudson Hudson Tables 2-Aug-93 Pointing? Page 2 Tenerife 3-Aug-93 T. Sakurai (NAOJ) Hudson Hudson Tables 13-Aug-93 Acton Image ftp? SERTS rocket 17-Aug-93 J. Davila (GSFC) Acton TBD Tables Pointing? Image ftp? We have now set up an "anonymous ftp" access to information related to these and future joint observing campaigns. It is possible to access this information from a computer with ftp software. For information on the procedures, please send a request to "hudson@isass0.solar.isas.ac.jp". << Data Analysis Software >> Significant progress has been made on the pointing and registration efforts. New databases have been assembled so that the processed pointing information can be accessed quickly and easily. Several new alignment routines are available which can track a fixed location on the sun, or track a region by specifying heliocentric coordinates. Several new routines for co-alignment of SXT images with ground based images are also under development. Several additional remote sites installed the Yohkoh SW system, which is now online at approximately 35 sites worldwide. The architectures running Yohkoh SW were extended to include the new Digital Alpha machines, running both OSF1 and RISC VMS. We are currently extending the remote installation and upgrade procedures to permit the use of anonymous ftp for software (but not data) installations; this will include an auto-registration function so we may track the remote installations. The software and data base backup capabilities at ISAS and Lockheed were improved and extended. There are backup machines at each site which may serve Yohkoh data analysis if the primary machine is lost. This is particularly important at ISAS, where the solar observers make use of many planning software tools and secondary support data base (ex: GOES). The generation of such secondary data bases were made machine independent. In addition to the backup function, this capability also will permit spreading the workload among machines as the number of tasks increases. << Instrument Operations and Health >> There were SXT Bit Map Errors on the following days (with a full recovery during the same pass or the next pass): 930705-1342 930709-0928 930721-0516 930722-0517 930726-0413 Standard 18 arcminute offpoints were performed on 30-Jun, 8-Jul, 15-Jul, 22-Jul, and 30-Jul. Page 3 HXT performed calibrations for three days which involved setting the S/C to Flare Mode. The following periods are HXT calibration data, and are not real flares: Start End Duration DP Number of Datasets (UT) (UT) (min) Mode SXT-FFI SXT-PFI HXT/WBS BCS 12-JUL-93 16:43:30-16:52:30 9.00 Flare 0 0 252 0 13-JUL-93 13:39:06-13:46:26 7.33 Flare 0 0 224 0 14-JUL-93 17:25:20-17:33:51 8.52 Flare 0 0 258 0 Efforts are being made to obtain a series of "sunset" images through the thin aluminum filter so that the pin hole leak can be characterized more fully. In addition to the direct light from the pin hole, it is possible to distinguish a grid pattern (from the mesh holding the aluminum foil) and a "network" feature (appearing somewhat like a spider's web) which are visible for longer exposures. The sunset images taken through the earths atmosphere causes the x-rays to be attenuated while still transmitting in the visible light. << Data Flow >> Computer network problems and occasional delays in receiving DSN data has caused a slight delay in reformatting and distribution of Yohkoh data. The processing is currently two weeks behind. The magneto-optical (MO) disk archive was used to generate a new pointing database. With the use of the 70 MO disks, it was possible to generate the database for the whole mission in just four days. << Problems >> The computer network within ISAS and between ISAS and the rest of the world has been having intermittent problems. The largest impact is on the ability to reformat the data and to distribute it to the co-investigators in a timely manner. It often takes many attempts over several days to copy the data from the mainframe to the workstations, when it should only take six to eight hours for that step. On 29-Jul, the ISASS0 workstation had a problem with an I/O card which cause the machine to be unavailable for one day. The ISASS2 backup worked fairly well, but several new additions were made in the last week to allow the backup system to be more complete. A series of typhoons caused some concern but no real problems. On a few occasions, a real time contact at KSC had to be canceled. << Papers and Conferences >> The 24th meeting of the American Astronomical Society's Solar Physics Division was held at Stanford University on 13-16 July 1993. The presentation and discussion of Yohkoh data figured prominently in nearly all the sessions. The first of the ten oral sessions was entirely devoted to Yohkoh papers, with the invited talk being given by Dr Saku Page 4 Tsuneta (University of Tokyo). There was a very good participation by SXT Co-I members who presented approximately 30 papers and posters. There was much interest in the Yohkoh data from individuals not directly connected with the mission, and there were many informal discussions held about potential future collaborations. In serveral presentations, beautiful overlapping data from the corona and the disk obtained by Yohkoh, SPARTAN, and NIXT from the coordinated data campaign of April 11-12 were displayed. A poster and workstation demo describing Yohkoh data base and analysis system was presented at the SPD meeting. Due to the timing of the Yohkoh contacts and connection to the internet during the workstation sessions, we were able to display SXT Full Disk composite image sequences (movies) which were often less than 2.5 hours 'old' with NOAA Active Region locations overlayed. This near-real-time access to our data base (which includes Yohkoh and supporting Ground Base/Satellite data) was of interest to several Solar observers at the meeting and precipitated at least one phone call to request additional observations at Big Bear. Page 5 << Engineering Summary Table >> Month Full Frame Images Observing Region Images Received Lost Received Lost Loss % QT FL Tot Sep-91 517 397 21174 3541 24715 5481 18.15 Oct-91 4106 2532 6393 12437 18830 3401 15.30 Nov-91 5291 2475 12149 14696 26845 10952 28.98 Dec-91 4858 3228 4983 16837 21820 6910 24.05 Jan-92 5544 3177 10084 5972 16056 6849 29.90 Feb-92 5061 2672 16113 11142 27255 11396 29.48 Mar-92 5910 2699 19236 2653 21889 10589 32.60 Apr-92 6751 3483 20157 5423 25580 12327 32.52 May-92 7032 3158 25464 4589 30053 13745 31.38 Jun-92 6417 3632 21648 12725 34373 14782 30.07 Jul-92 6345 3275 23941 10510 34451 14717 29.93 Aug-92 6572 2978 24207 11154 35361 13550 27.70 Sep-92 6087 2916 26832 20042 46874 15729 25.12 Oct-92 6743 2589 50985 14709 65694 23687 26.50 Nov-92 6658 2939 24416 14696 39112 12924 24.84 Dec-92 6775 2999 24253 6633 30886 12356 28.57 Jan-93 6888 3351 24067 4861 28928 13069 31.12 Feb-93 6833 3004 24479 18149 42628 12302 22.40 Mar-93 7177 3460 25874 19537 45411 14657 24.40 Apr-93 7754 3644 34128 8352 42480 17967 29.72 May-93 8571 3950 41832 7518 49350 21971 30.81 Jun-93 7340 2589 64545 12539 77084 26299 25.44 Jul-93 4866 2290 25102 3612 28714 13551 32.06 Total 140096 67437 572062 242327 814389 309211 27.52 Number of Full Frame Images Received: 140096 Number of Observing Region Images Received: 814389 Total: 954485 Approximate Number of Shutter Moves/CCD Readouts: 1679889 NOTES: * The loss of images is mainly due to BDR overwrites, but there are also occasional DSN dumps which are lost. * It is common to have observing regions which contain more than 64 lines, which requires multiple exposures to make a single observing region image. This is why the number of shutter moves is larger than the number of images received plus those lost. Page 6 Month Avg Dark Level # of Dark Spikes CCD Warmings Front Optical (DN) (e/sec) Over 48 Over 64 High / # Support Trans Temp /Days Temp (%) Oct-91 31.07 21.3 509 32596 10.5 77.8 Nov-91 31.06 20.9 648 34619 11.9 64.4 Dec-91 31.04 20.2 804 35157 14.0 52.5 Jan-92 31.13 23.6 985 38926 0.5 / 2 14.9 38.4 Feb-92 31.32 30.8 1176 44643 14.3 31.7 Mar-92 31.47 36.5 1355 49535 14.8 25.1 Apr-92 31.44 35.2 1323 49325 23.8 / 4 14.6 22.8 May-92 31.65 43.1 1417 56822 14.4 20.1 Jun-92 32.12 60.9 2215 70862 -2.5 / 3 15.1 17.4 Jul-92 32.22 64.4 1852 79326 15.5 14.1 Aug-92 32.21 64.1 1922 77488 14.9 13.1 Sep-92 32.38 70.5 2062 84758 -1.2 / 3 15.9 12.2 Oct-92 32.64 80.3 2317 94956 16.8 11.5 Nov-92 36.24 215.1 6112 168220 18.0 11.0 Dec-92 42.58 452.8 17390 255840 17.9 N/A Jan-93 42.59 453.1 13006 261099 23.8 / 2 19.2 N/A Feb-93 N/A N/A N/A N/A 17.7 N/A Mar-93 43.14 473.8 14047 261578 17.7 N/A Apr-93 43.13 473.4 14304 261595 23.8 / 2 16.9 N/A May-93 43.45 485.3 16405 261620 17.3 N/A Jun-93 44.03 507.2 20037 261629 16.3 N/A Jul-93 44.51 525.1 24290 261632 22.5 / 2 18.3 N/A NOTES: * The dark current calculations are using full half resolution 2.668 sec images not taken in during the SAA. The dark current rate assumes a "fat zero" of 30.5 DN and a gain of 100 e/DN. * The entrance filter failure of 13-Nov-92 eliminated the capability of taking optical images, so the optical transmission is not available after Nov-92. It also caused an increase in the dark current signal, however some of the increase shown here is an increase in the readout noise and is not a function of exposure duration. Page 7 << Personnel Travel >> SXT travel for the month of July, 1993: ACTON 31-JUL-93 31-JUL-93 * 1 (total of 1 days) BRUNER 1-JUL-93 * 1-JUL-93 1 (total of 1 days) HUDSON 1-JUL-93 * 6-JUL-93 6 20-JUL-93 31-JUL-93 * 12 (total of 18 days) MORRISON 6-JUL-93 23-JUL-93 18 (total of 18 days) NITTA 21-JUL-93 31-JUL-93 * 11 (total of 11 days) SLATER 19-JUL-93 31-JUL-93 * 13 (total of 13 days) METCALF 1-JUL-93 * 2-JUL-93 2 (total of 2 days) WUELSER 6-JUL-93 30-JUL-93 25 (total of 25 days) Planned SXT travel for the month of August, 1993: ACTON 1-AUG-93 * 21-AUG-93 21 (total of 21 days) FREELAND 23-AUG-93 31-AUG-93 * 9 (total of 9 days) HUDSON 1-AUG-93 * 1-AUG-93 1 16-AUG-93 31-AUG-93 * 16 (total of 17 days) LEMEN 24-AUG-93 31-AUG-93 * 8 (total of 8 days) NITTA 1-AUG-93 * 5-AUG-93 5 (total of 5 days) SLATER 1-AUG-93 * 31-AUG-93 * 31 (total of 31 days) STRONG 27-AUG-93 31-AUG-93 * 5 (total of 5 days) Respectfully submitted, Mons D. Morrison Frank Friedlaender Page 8 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- UNIVERSITY OF HAWAII ACTIVITY REPORT (DR. R. CANFIELD) No input required for this month -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT BERKELEY No input required for this month -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- STANFORD UNIVERSITY (DR. P. STURROCK) No input required for this month -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- SOLAR PHYSICS RESEARCH CORPORATION (KAREN L. HARVEY) No input required for this month -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- MONTANA STATE UNIVERSITY (LOREN ACTON) No input required for this month Page 9 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 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 | August 10, 1993 July 1993 |-------------------------------- | 6. PERFORMING ORGANIZATION | CODE: O/91-30 -----------------------------------------------|-------------------------------- 7. AUTHOR(S) | 8. PERFORMING ORGANIZA- M. D. Morrison | TION REPORT NO: F. M. Friedlaender | |-------------------------------- -----------------------------------------------|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 for the month | of July, 1993 |-------------------------------- |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 | 9 | ------------------------|------------------------|-----------------|------------ For sale by: Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C. 20402-0001