PROGRESS REPORT THE SOLAR-A SOFT X-RAY TELESCOPE (SXT) PROGRAM (CONTRACT NAS8-00119) (for October-November 2002) OVERVIEW The YOHKOH Mission is a program of the Japanese Institute of Space and Astronautical Science (ISAS) with collaboration by the U. S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration and the U. K. Science and Engineering Research Council. The YOHKOH satellite was launched on 30 August 1991 from Kagoshima Space Center (KSC) in Japan. The purpose of this mission is to study high energy phenomena in solar flares and the Sun's corona. Under an international cooperative agreement, Lockheed Martin, 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 at the Lockheed Martin Solar and Astrophysics Laboratory in cooperation with the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan, and the Institute for Astronomy of the University of Tokyo. MAJOR PROGRAMMATIC ACTIVITIES IN THE MONTH The contract modification for the effort on the Galileo phase of this contract has now been definitized. The effort is still very intense albeit at a much lower support level. HIGHLIGHTS Acton and Metcalf continued work on the important leak contamination issue. After further work by Acton, it is clear that technique of de-correlating the data images and the leak images is not as robust as the technique of modeling higher order corrections to the initial leak calibration. The so-called "second order leak correction" designed by Acton markedly improves the leak correction. Research in this area continues. We have now terminated our full-time presence at ISAS and want to thank our colleagues Hugh Hudson, Aki Takeda, and Janos Bartus for their long efforts at ISAS operating the SXT instrument, ensuring the integrity of the SXT data stream, and distributing Yohkoh data to the solar physics community. The elements of the NASA-provided SXT data system which remain at ISAS will now primarily be maintained remotely from Palo Alto. Slater worked on a new computer system that will house the entire Yohkoh/Galileo database at Palo Alto. The system will ultimately have 2.3 TB of storage space and will allow the rapid production of the Galileo end-product. Slater and Bartus worked on a distributed computing environment which will allow the Galileo dataset to undergo its final calibration utilizing NASA facilities at several institutions including Palo Alto, MSU, and ISAS. PUBLIC USE OF SXT IMAGES We are continuing to make Yohkoh/SXT images available for a variety of uses. We receive requests for the Yohkoh posters (#2 and #3) by way of the form on the SXT homepage. Currently we receive requests via our homepage at the rate of 2 or 3 per day. The WEB access statistics in October were 56,111 accesses and 4,553 Mbytes transferred for the SXT website and 100,758 accesses and 1,841 Mbytes transferred for the YPOP website. The WEB access statistics in November were 81,457 accesses and 5,791 Mbytes transferred for the SXT website and 143,500 accesses and 2,686 Mbytes transferred for the YPOP website. Respectfully submitted, Thomas R. Metcalf Frank Friedlaender Page 5 ================================================================= Montana State Univ Activity Report for October 2002-November 2002 ================================================================= (D. McKenzie and P. Martens) McKenzie continued working with Terry Forbes & Jun Lin on analysis of SXT images for condensations in flare cusps, continuing the work begun by this summer's REU student Jessica Dunlap. For Galileo, McKenzie has begun revisiting our on-orbit measurements of the CCD gain, to verify stability throughout the mission. Additionally, McKenzie and grad student Trae Winter finished revising the YPOP website; after it's review by members of the Galileo team, this static version of the site will replace the online version of YPOP for perpetuity. During the period McKenzie wrote an SXT Nugget, and continued editing the raw Nuggets for the worldwide mirror sites -- the SXT Nuggets completed a five-year run at the end of October. McKenzie has taken up the task of being NASA E/PO Broker/Facilitator for the state of Montana, as part of the Space Science Network Northwest. "Multi-Wavelength Observations of Coronal Structure and Dynamics -- Yohkoh 10th Anniversary Meeting", COSPAR Colloquia Series, Volume 13, 442 pages, P.C.H. Martens and D. Cauffman (eds.), ISBN: 0-08-044060-6. (Elsevier: Dordrecht). Conference held in January 2002. "Blind Deconvolution of the SXT PSF Core Part", S. Gburek, J. Sylwester, and P.C.H. Martens, in: "Multi-Wavelength Observations of Coronal Structure and Dynamics -- Yohkoh 10th Anniversary Meeting", COSPAR Colloquia Series, Volume 13, P.C.H. Martens and D. Cauffman (eds.), pp. 417-418. (Elsevier: Dordrecht). The Origin of Prominences and Their Hemispheric Preferences for Chirality and the Skew of Overlying Loops", P.C.H. Martens, in: "Multi-Wavelength Observations of Coronal Structure and Dynamics -- Yohkoh 10th Anniversary Meeting", COSPAR Colloquia Series, Volume 13, P.C.H. Martens and D. Cauffman (eds.), pp. 135-138. (Elsevier: Dordrecht). "Yohkoh Observations of Reconnection", P.C.H. Martens, COSPAR World Space Congress, Houston, TX, October 10, 2002. Page 12 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 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 | 10 December 2002 October-November 2002 |------------------------------- | 6. PERFORMING ORG | CODE: O/L9-41 -----------------------------------------------|------------------------------- 7. AUTHOR(S) | 8. PERFORMING ORGANIZA- T. R. Metcalf | TION REPORT NO: F. M. Friedlaender | |------------------------------- -----------------------------------------------|10. WORK UNIT NO. 9. PERFORMING ORGANIZATION NAME AND ADDRESS | Lockheed Martin Missiles and Space |------------------------------- Advanced Technology Center, O/L9-41, B/252 |11. CONTRACT OR GRANT NO. 3251 Hanover Street, Palo Alto Ca. 94304 | NAS8 - 00119 -----------------------------------------------|------------------------------- 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 Contact: Larry Hill | of October-November 2002 |------------------------------- |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. SXT data collection stopped on December 14, 2001. --------------------------------------|---------------------------------------- 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 | 4 | ------------------------|------------------------|-----------------|-----------