Future S/C Manoeuvres and Operations

SOHO and ISO conflict for the utilization of Goldstone

DSN has confirmed that there is no conflict supporting both the 24 hours continuous contact of SOHO and the extended ISO mission beginning of next year.

MDI continuous for TRACE

R.Bush presented the MDI high rate telemetry requirements (see annex 11). Concerning extended magnetogram support during the prime period of TRACE, the SWT agreed on the following resolution:

When TRACE begins observing the Sun early next year, it is extremely desirable to have MDI magnetic observations coordinated with it for extended periods. A second continuous period of the extra telemetry is requested for a each month, with duration of 5-days ``guaranteed'' and continuing up to 10 days on a ``best effort'' basis, with some gaps allowed.

MEDOC campaigns

V.Domingo presented Alan Gabriel's e-mail from 15 October:

Vicente,

I suppose I might also have a vote on the Medoc campaign issue ? If so, my position is :

The coordination with European ground-based observatories was always one of the justifications, but not the only one, nor perhaps the principal one.

The real argument, often stated, was to bring SOHO to a larger community of younger people who could not reasonable find the resources to go to the EOF. If this succeeds (and it did for the first campaign) then it is of benefit to all of SOHO.

The concern is to ensure that this activity does not damage the EOF work. I find it difficult to imagine that 5 weeks total out of 52 weeks could cause such damage. Also, if I reflect honestly, a cannot see that this short period of MEDOC activity has had any influence against scientists attending the EOF.

Finally, I think we should ask people to be a little fair. SOHO is not an all USA mission and it is not unreasonable for the EOF to forego some small percentage of time in order to repay some of the considerable European investment. I hope the SWT can find some sense in these arguments.

Regards,

Alan Gabriel

J.Gurman, in line with remarks from the last SPWG meeting conveyed by P.Martens, commented that the MEDOC campaigns are too difficult from an operations point of view. People often were asking things which were physically impossible. The numbers of objectives should be kept small (keep it simple!).

The SWT agreed that the Project Scientists send a letter to MEDOC clarifying these issues. The following letter was sent on October 21 to J.-C.Vial and A.Gabriel:

MEDOC campaigns

The SWT agreed that we send you a letter with the following points:

We consider that it is very valuable for the solar research community to allow younger people, and those who do not have the resources to come to the U.S., the opportunity to participate in SOHO operations. MEDOC is an excellent opportunity to encourage and allow this to happen. Therefore the SWT considers that operations from MEDOC should continue to be done with a reasonable frequency, say two times per year.

The MEDOC operation does put an increased work load on the staff at the EOF. For this reason future MEDOC campaigns must be more clearly defined from a scientific viewpoint well before (2 months) the campaign is scheduled. We feel that it would be appropriate for MEDOC, the SOHO PIs, and the Project Scientists to advertise to the European solar community the times that one would like to have a MEDOC campaign. We should get VERY BRIEF (1 paragraph maximum) proposals from people stating what science observing programs they wish to do from MEDOC and who will come to MEDOC to run those campaigns. We can then schedule a MEDOC campaign based on these proposals. This would make the extra work at the EOF worth the effort.

Yours,
Vicente and Art
SOHO Project Scientists

SUMER telemetry re-allocation

Proposal for Routine Procedure for Submode Changes (L. Allen/P. Martens):

 
Table 1: Instrument Packets

• Team sends ``Remote Procedure Request'' (RPR), an informational message, sent just like a command, through the NRT link to the FOT console operators.
• This tells the console personnel to run a procedure (e.g.):
  • Pause the NRT link
  • Check to see if the SSR is dumping (a big no no)
  • Switch to the appropriate submode
  • Re-enable the NRT link
• This does not eliminate need for coordination at daily meeting
• Initially SOC will only allow this procedure between submode 5 and 6 (involving only two teams), and during experiment operator presence