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STATUS:
04.25.10
Today is the 3rd anniversary of our 2007 launch - Happy Birthday to AIM!
Spacecraft Status
The spacecraft continues to perform nominally. During the past month we experienced one of our longest periods without bitlock - 34 ½ days. The longest period without bitlock was 37 days. During the most recent bitlock opportunity we modified the battery charge profile to better ensure the long-term battery health, loaded a sequence to test new SOFIE flight software code which will allow for better autonomous event time calculations as the orbit changes, and loaded the monthly CIPS Flat Field calibration. GATS reports that the new software on SOFIE is performing as expected.
Instrument Status
SOFIE continues to operate normally. The Ops Team recently ran an on-orbit test to verify the latest autonomy flight software. The test ran for 3 days and successfully concluded on April 24, 2010 when the spacecraft commanded SOFIE to return to the previous version of flight software. All engineering parameters and status flags are GREEN.
A paper describing the retrieval of ice particle temperature, shape, and phase
using SOFIE observations was accepted in JGR: Hervig, M. E., and L. L. Gordley, The temperature, shape, and phase of mesospheric ice from SOFIE observations, J. Geophys. Res., in press, doi:10.1029/2010JD013918, 2010.
A paper describing comparisons of SOFIE PMC measurements and PMSE observations
was submitted to JASTP: Hervig, M. E., M. Rapp, R. Latteck, and L. L. Gordley, Observations of mesospheric ice particles from the ALWIN radar and SOFIE, J. Atmos. Solar-Terr. Phys., in review, 2010.
CIPS continues to operate nominally; we switched to NH viewing in March in preparation for the upcoming season, which will start in May. Calibration data is being obtained successfully once per month, with no indication of instrument degradation. We are currently evaluating version 3.22 data, with the intent to release it in May. Processing of version 4.1 data has begun, with levels 1A and 1B. Test orbits of the level 2 retrievals will be processed during the week of April 26, with full processing to occur shortly afterward, beginning with the NH 2007 season.
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