Happy Birthday AIM! On Saturday, April 25, AIM celebrated birthday #2. The spacecraft is performing well except for the limited receiver bitlock.
Instrument Status
The SOFIE instrument continues to operate nominally. SOFIE in collaboration with the AIM spacecraft will perform a calibration on May 2, 2009 to help characterize thermal oscillations noted in the SOFIE signals. SOFIE data processing, validation and release of the data to the public has continued without any serious problems. The data is generally processed within a few days of being received and data quality remains exceptional with only a few issues. The validation process noted that the early April SOFIE measurements of H2O near 50km in the northern hemisphere exhibit an extraordinary character. Currently, refraction and CO2 retrievals are being developed for the next software release. The manuscript "High Precision Refraction Measurements by Solar Imaging during Occultation: Results from SOFIE" has been submitted to Applied Optics and is currently being reviewed.
CIPS continues to operate nominally. We have successfully acquired a full set of southern hemisphere flat field images, and are currently obtaining a second set. The instrument will switch to northern hemisphere observations on 8 May, with a new set of flat field images scheduled to begin 11 May. We have recently completed our first systematic evaluation of CIPS v3.20 data files at most levels, and have written the accompanying documentation. This documentation describes the various data products as well as limitations on the data. In addition, we have produced new “summary” data files for the common volume measurements – these files contain cloud property information for all CIPS pixels in the common volume. We are in the process of completing global level 4 summary files, which contain cloud property information binned as a function of latitude. The new documentation and links to data files can be obtained now at http://lasp.colorado.edu/aim/cips/data/index.php, and will soon be available on the main AIM web site.
Note, CDE will not be making science measurements in the extended mission.
