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STATUS:
05.31.13
Spacecraft Status
AIM continues to operate nominally. A lunar eclipse occurred on May 10 but the coarse sun sensors remained locked on the Sun and therefore had no impact on the spacecraft operations. All spacecraft subsystems continue to perform well. Lastly, on March 25th AIM celebrated its 6th birthday Congratulations AIM!
Instrument Status
SOFIE: SOFIE continues to operate nominally as it begins observations of its 13th PMC season. The current PMC season began on May 13, 2013, ~10 days before any of the previous 6 Northern Hemisphere seasons to date. The Figure below shows SOFIE observations on May 13, 2013, at 70°N latitude. The left panel shows the temperatures associated with the observed PMC, compared to the daily mean temperature and frost point temperature profiles. The right panel shows the water vapor mixing ratio contained in the PMC versus altitude. SOFIE observations show that temperatures associated with the PMCs were up to 10 K lower than on average for that day near 83 km altitude. Because SOFIE water vapor observations indicate normal values associated with the cloud, the early appearance of PMCs is attributed to unusually low temperatures. As the observed temperatures are not below the frost point, it is likely that the PMC was observed while undergoing sublimation.
click to enlarge
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