Chandra Users’ Committee CXC Manager’s Status Report For the period October 2010 – September 2011 Edward Mattison CXC Deputy Manager 13 October 2011

10/13/11 CXC Status Report/CUCPage 2 Topics Program Management Mission Operations –Spacecraft –Science Instruments and Calibration –Mission Planning –Operations Control Center Science Operations –CXC Data Systems –Calibration –Data Processing Chandra Director’s Office –GO Program –Einstein Program Education and Public Outreach

10/13/11 CXC Status Report/CUCPage 3 Top Level Summary Spacecraft and instruments are performing superbly –Safemode in July resulted from increased gravitational torques combined with timing of spacecraft commands; no hardware problems; fully recovered –There are no known spacecraft limitations due to degradation, aging or consumables that would prevent our meeting Level 1 requirements over the course of a 20-year mission NASA 2012 Senior Review –Proposal due 1/18/12; in preparation

10/13/11 CXC Status Report/CUCPage 4 Program Management

10/13/11 CXC Status Report/CUCPage 5 Program Management Budget –CXC is funded through 11/30/11; reduces impact of potential Federal continuing resolutions –The CXC’s budget and staffing are consistent with the current NASA budget plan –The plan cuts the overall Chandra program 6.8% from FY11–12; affects entire program; requires for the first time a decrease (5.7%) in the grants program in FY13, with level funding thereafter (step function decrease) Contract –Provides for baseline period to 9/30/13 with two three-year options to 9/30/16 and 9/30/19 –Expect MSFC to inform us in May 2012 of intent to exercise Option 1 CXC Status Report/CUC

10/13/11 CXC Status Report/CUCPage 6 Program Management NASA 2012 Senior Review of operating missions –Includes Chandra, Hubble, Fermi, Kepler, Planck, Spitzer, Suzaku, Swift, XMM-Newton –Call for Proposals issued 8/10/11; proposal due 1/18/12; EPO proposal due 12/15/11 –Proposal in preparation; Red Team draft planned for early November CXC-organized Conferences and Reviews –Einstein Fellowship Symposium (10/19-20/10) –Chandra Users’ Committee (10/25/10) –ADASS Boston (11/7-10/11) –12 Years of Science with Chandra [Boston AAS meeting] (5/23-25/11) –Peer Review of Chandra proposals (6/21-24/11) –Workshop: Structure in Clusters and Galaxy Groups (7/12-14/11) –X-ray Astronomy School (8/1-5/11) –CIAO workshop (8/6/11)

10/13/11 CXC Status Report/CUCPage 7 Mission Operations Spacecraft –Continues to operate extremely well –Nominal passages through eclipse seasons –Safe mode on 7/6/11: First safemode in ~11 years. No hardware problems. Caused by a combination of increased gravity gradient torques at the spacecraft’s lower perigee altitudes and timing of scheduled mission events in the vicinity of perigee. Full recovery to nominal operating configuration by 7/11/11 Science Instruments –Instruments are operating extremely well –Preparing to uplink ACIS software patch to enable ACIS to automatically recognize certain kinds of harmful radiation events –Aspect camera heating during safemode serendipitously annealed some warm pixels in aspect camera CCD, reducing the number of warm pixels CXC Status Report/CUC

10/13/11 CXC Status Report/CUCPage 8 Mission Operations Operations Control Center –Smooth operations –Supported safemode recovery with 24/7 operations –Installed new interface servers and software to adapt to new JPL data formats and protocols for transmitting DSN data to the OCC –Upgrading OCC air conditioning system to accommodate increasing heat loads and equipment aging Mission Planning –7 load-interrupting TOOs during this period –Observing efficiency has been increasing due to orbit evolution CXC Status Report/CUC

10/13/11 CXC Status Report/CUCPage 9 Mission Operations Observing Efficiency CXC Status Report/CUC Observing time has increased due to evolving orbit

10/13/11 CXC Status Report/CUCPage 10 Mission Operations – Consumables Momentum Unloading & Propulsion System (MUPS) Fuel Usage CXC Status Report/CUC

10/13/11 CXC Status Report/CUCPage 11 Mission Operations – Consumables MUPS Thruster Warm Starts CXC Status Report/CUC

10/13/11 CXC Status Report/CUCPage 12 Science Operations CXC Data System Releases Chandra Source Catalog Releases VersionDateMain contents CAT /15/10CSCview Crossmatch release CAT /07/11Limiting Sensitivity Web Security patch CSCGoogleEarth 1.2 2/14/11 Relocate images on system disk - syshelp request CAT /28/11Server upgrade to Sybase 15.5 VersionDateMain contents DS /15/10Operations upgrades DS /15/10CfP 13 Proposal Planning Support DS /22/11Support new XVP in Proposal Panel GUI DS /19/11Proposal web reports update: complete migration to DMZ DS 8.406/28/11Annual DS release; add ACIS subpixel to L1 pipeline DS /20/11ACIS offset patch

10/13/11 CXC Status Report/CUCPage 13 Science Operations Calibration –QE loss with LETG/HRC-S at some wavelengths was traced to slowly decreasing detector gain; plan to raise HRC-S voltage and recalibrate –Updated LETG higher order diffraction efficiencies (m=2-10) and LETG/HRC-S effective area –7 calibration database (CalDB) releases in the reporting period Data Processing –Automatic processing is current; mean time from end of observation to delivery to user remains at about one day

10/13/11 CXC Status Report/CUCPage 14 Science Operations Data Delivery As of middle of following monthAs of 9/13/11 Month Number of Obs Days to Data Delivery Number Deliv Number Outstanding Number Deliv Number Outstanding Comments MinAvgMax Sep Oct Nov Dec Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Avg data delivery ~1 day from observation

10/13/11 CXC Status Report/CUCPage 15 Chandra Director’s Office General Observer Program – Cycle 13 –Proposal deadline 3/15/11; 664 proposals received; 5.4x time oversubscription –Includes X-ray Visionary Projects (major programs, 1–6 Msec, up to 3 cycles) –Peer review 6/20-24/11; 664 proposals submitted, 199 approved for 26 Msec, including 4 XVP projects totaling 8 Msec –~6 Msec more observing time than earlier in mission, due to orbit evolution –Target list posted 7/15; early observations began in July Einstein Fellowship Program –2010 Einstein Fellowship Symposium held at CfA, Oct 2010 –178 applicants for 2011 Einstein Fellowship competition; 10 selected to start this fall –2011 Fellowship Symposium to be held at GSFC, 10/25-26/11 –2012 application deadline 11/3/11; expect to award 11 fellowships –Considering abolishing the one-Fellow-per-host institution limit CXC Status Report/CUC

10/13/11 CXC Status Report/CUCPage 16 Chandra Director’s Office Grant Awards Grants are typically awarded within ~2-3 weeks of observation CXC Status Report/CUC

10/13/11 CXC Status Report/CUCPage 17 Education and Public Outreach Highlights Press –2 televised NASA News Conferences (SN1979c; Chandra Deep Field S) –15 science press releases, 16 image releases, 2 non-science releases Web, Digital, Social Media –Added Smartphone apps and Twitter feeds to social media presence –3 presentations at AstroViz workshop on astronomical visualization, 3 at ADASS Public Outreach –Participated in NYC World Science Fair, Astronomy Night on the Mall, NASA’s Music Under the Stars (Tanglewood, Newport) –Received 2 grants ($600k, 2 yrs) for public outreach projects from NASA’s “Education and Public Outreach for Earth and Space Science” program Education –17 events at National Science Teachers Association meetings –Invited talk at American Association of Physics Teachers meeting, 3 at Astronomical Society of the Pacific meeting