SOHO SPWG Minutes
SPWG FINAL MINUTES
Friday 15 December 2006
1. Boundary conditions
a) Orbit, attitude and manoeuvres
- SOHO is currently upside down
- manoeuvres
Feb 27 stationkeeping and momentum management (timing TBC); roll
date TBD
May 29 roll, stationkeeping and momentum management (timing TBC)
b) Communications with the spacecraft
Graphical DSN schedule: http://soho.nascom.nasa.gov/soc/dsn/
Madrid 70 m antenna is scheduled to be operational again as of
2 Jan 2007, possibly even earlier.
* Feb 13-Mar 12 26 m keyhole
* Feb 20-Mar 5 34 m keyhole
* May 18-Jun 5 26 m keyhole
* May 22-May 31 34 m keyhole
- The need and approach to reduce FOT manpower requirements needed for
complex operations during the keyhole remains in effect until further
notice.
All available keyhole information is at
http://soho.nascom.nasa.gov/soc/keyholes.html
c) KNOWN submode dependent activities/submode changes:
* TOO JOP153/MMOP003 Future Major Flare Watch (SM5 if SUMER
observes target, SM6 otherwise)
* TOO JOP175 Extended Filaments at the Limb (see sect. 2a), SM6
* Jan 17,24 EIT Shutterless #26, TBC
* Mar 13-Apr 30 SUMER/Hinode campaign, SUMER/EIS, TBC by Hinode team
* May 1-14 SOHO/STEREO campaign, EIT/SECCHI (dates TBC after Hinode
commissioning)
* May 9,16 EIT Shutterless #27, TBC
- Some of the default SUMER campaign dates overlap with keyholes -
which is not a problem in itself (submode 5 will often be needed for
keyholes anyhow) as long as potential periods of no SUMER data
between passes can be accepted.
- Except for Major Flare Watches, TRACE will be doing full disk
mosaics if/when EIT is not able to do synoptic sets due to keyhole
operations.
d) Instrument maintenance activities
EIT bakeout periods will be during keyholes. Dates and times are
defined when the DSN schedules become available.
e) Others
- TRACE eclipses
* Oct 5-Mar 1 TRACE winter (hard) eclipse season
2. Priorities for the coming month and more
a) Joint observing plans and campaigns
Continuing campaigns:
* 2002/02/25-- JOP136 Default RHESSI Collaborations (#6850),
POC: Tero Siili
* 2003/05/13-- Default CDS Co-observations with TRACE (#6950)
* 2004/02/19-- JOP175 Extended Filaments at the Limb (#7135),
EIT/TRACE/LASCO/UVCS,
POC: Chris St Cyr
* 2005/09/20-- JOP153/MMOP003 Future Major Flare Watch (#8007)
Campaign #6850 is for "individual instrument studies" selecting an
AR target [partially] influenced by the Max Millennium target
selection to maximise chances of serendipitous co-observations.
EIT supports all with half/full-res 195 A CME watch in submode 5/6,
except JOP175 getting half/full-res 304 A CME watch in submode 5/6. As
long as the spacecraft is in submode 6, all EIT CME watch will be in full
res. Major Flare Watches will be in full-res even if it requires a
submode change, unless the target is observed by SUMER.
The relevance and continuation (whether the originators have
enough/alternate data) of these campaigns (except perhaps for RHESSI) is
under review.
* Dec 21-27 Ulysses-SOHO Quadrature Observations,
UVCS/CDS(TBC)/LASCO/Ulysses/STELKab, POC: Giannina Poletto
The quadrature period extends until May 19, 2007.
UVCS will encourage the lead observers to take advantage of the
Ulysses-SOHO quadrature beginning this December when planning observation
programs. UVCS will schedule extra observation time devoted to this
quadrature and said schedule will be made available to the SOHO SOCs. A
document from Steve Suess and Giannina Poletto discussing the
Ulysses-SOHO quadrature geometry is available from Michael Uzzo and also
at http://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/soc/UlyPosAng2007-2008.pdf.
The quadrature angle will be P.A.=196 during that time (SW limb; the
position angle corresponds to 74 degrees south of the equator at the west
limb).
LASCO will support with 4 C2 pB (orange filter, LEB binned) per day for
the dates Dec 21-27 2006, unless a Major Flare Watch is declared.
Given the extended duration of the quadrature, CDS will carry out several
observations at a convenient date selected at a relatively short notice.
* Jan 6-8 MDI Continuous Contact
Current default plan is full-disk magnetograms and dopplergrams.
* Jan 8-21 Polar Coronal Hole Study,
UVCS/LASCO(TBC)/CDS(TBC)/EIT(TBC)/Hinode(TBC)/
TRACE(TBC), POC: Mari Paz Miralles
The POC is in the process of contacting these intruments about specific
requests for the collaboration and will contact all relevant parties as
soon as updates are available.
* Jan 17, 24 EIT Shutterless #26, TBC
* Feb 2-4 MDI Continuous Contact
Current default plan is full-disk magnetograms and dopplergrams.
* Mar 13-Apr 30 SOHO/Hinode campaign, SUMER/CDS/EIS, POC: Werner Curdt
Dates will be confirmed after Hinode commissioning. SUMER starts
collecting proposals. CDS will also support (see also section 2c).
* Mar 28-Apr 1 MDI Continuous Contact
Current default plan is full-disk magnetograms and dopplergrams. Timing
TBC.
* Apr 25-29 MDI Continuous Contact
Current default plan is full disk magnetograms and dopplergrams. Timing
TBC.
* May 1-14 SOHO/STEREO campaign, EIT/SECCHI, POC: William Thompson
STEREO SECCHI prefers EIT to be obtaining full-resolution images, hence
the SUMER/EIS campaign will take place already in March to avoid
EIT/SUMER submode conflict.
EIT science planner for that period still TBD (for some months). Simon
can contact Kevin and Joe in the meantime.
Still TBD, if the shutterless run #27 on May 9 will be included.
* May 9, 16 EIT Shutterless #27, EIT/SECCHI (TBD)
* Jun 13-17 MDI Continuous Contact
Current default plan is full disk magnetograms and dopplergrams. Timing
TBC.
* Jul 18-22 MDI Continuous Contact
Timing TBC.
b) Intercalibration activities
Last Intercal 1: 06 November 2006
* Dec 20 ICAL01 (#7113), CDS/EIT, TBC
* Jan 8-12 ICAL01 (#7113), CDS/EIT, TBC
Details and confirmation will be determined by the planners.
Future ICALs are TBD, although the week beginning 18 Dec should be OK.
EIT: ICALs are OK except during the weeks of shutterless.
c) Individual instrument plans
MDI:
See section 2a for MDI continuous contact periods.
MDI may reduce the ALT cadence during Keyholes to be less than 15 ALT
magnetograms per day if the lack of high rate telemetry is such that we
will lose all or almost all of the 15 ALT Magnetograms each day. The ALT
cadence will be decided on an individual Keyhole basis and even a daily
basis during each Keyhole depending on the 70 m antenna availability at
the time. MDI may also downlink select magnetograms in the 5 kbps
telemetry if no 70 m passes are available at least every 2 days for Mag
dump in the 160 kbps telemetry.
All requests for MDI support need to be made several months ahead of time
and sent to mdi-ops(at)mdisas.nascom.nasa.gov. Even outside keyholes,
MDI can only do 1-minute cadence observations when we have contact and
there is no recorder dump in progress.
MDI's REQUEST page is at http://mdisas.nascom.nasa.gov/coordination.txt
NOTE: Listing of a study on that page means *only* that a request has
been received, not that it will necessarily be supported.
A description of MDI Observing Modes most used for JOPs and campaigns (FD
vs. HR) can be found at http://mdisas.nascom.nasa.gov/Collaborate.
Anyone requesting MDI observations is encouraged to read this page in
order to have a better idea of what observing modes would be best suited
for a particular study. More detailed information about how MDI
operates, observational constraints and telemetry information can be
found at http://mdisas.nascom.nasa.gov/MDI_Collaboration_Details.
MDI is back in focus 5, best focus for full-disk observing.
UVCS:
We have been using the LyA detector for some observations and will keep
planning so when appropriate.
For weekly plans, see the SOHO calendar and the UVCS planning page:
http://cfa-www.harvard.edu/uvcs/observations/obst.html.
See also the Exceptional Ulysses Quadrature (19-25 Dec 2006 and onwards
to May 2007) and the Polar Coronal Hole Study (8-21 Jan 2007) in section
2a.
CDS:
For details see http://solar.bnsc.rl.ac.uk/scientificops/request.shtml.
Joint observations with EIS and other Hinode instruments are top priority
for CDS for the next several months, including through the period of
SUMER/EIS campaign in Mar-Apr 2007. Detailed plan TBD.
Detailed plans of Hinode instruments are made available to CDS at a short
notice, usually one day in advance. This is not fully satisfactory but
we understand that the Hinode team are very busy at this stage. CDS
planners respond as appropriate. If SOHO SOCs have access to Hinode
weekly plans, forwarding them to us would be appreciated.
LASCO/EIT:
For information: on Dec 13 first light image support for STEREO,
EIT/EUVI B.
SUMER:
The first SUMER/EIS collaboration was apparently very successful;
scientific evaluation ongoing. No SUMER operations before the SUMER/EIS
campaign starting mid-March 2007. Observational details and SUMER
science planners for the campaign are TBD.
TRACE:
NASA has announced that it plans to continue funding of TRACE operations
at close to the FY06 level through FY08, followed by a significant
ramping down of operations into FY09.
NOTE that TRACE in general reserves the right to withdraw support from
agreed, existing collaborations if a sufficiently "good active region" is
called by the Max Millennium group.
3. Any other business
* Next SPWG:
Friday 26 January after the daily and weekly meetings.
The rest are FYI items:
* If anyone has projects that require high rate (i.e. 1 minute cadence) MDI
support, now is a good time to ask! If you need MDI data, make sure you
request it specifically. There is no significant change in the shutter
performance over the last 10 months; monitoring continues, but no
immediate changes in operations are planned.
* DSN support should be requested at least 6 months in advance. Keep this
in mind for: ground-based collaborations that require MDI support,
stellar/shutterless observations that require NRT, etc.
* Future Mercury and Venus transits: SOC is requesting the Flight Dynamics
Facility (FDF) to provide estimates and data for not only disk, but also
for coronal transits. For this purpose FDF needs a criterion
(radial/angular distance from Solar disk centre) to define the coronal
transits. Currently FDF has been instructed to use
SOHO/Sun/[Mercury,Venus] angle of (35 arcmin (from centre of Solar disk)
as criterion. Instrument teams are requested to provide the SOC with
information on whether a larger angle is applicable.
* Hinode operational and planning information can be found from
http://www.isas.jaxa.jp/home/solar/hinode_op/
* STEREO operational and planning information can be found via
http://stereo-ssc.nascom.nasa.gov/, more specifically from
http://stereo-ssc.nascom.nasa.gov/plans.shtml.