ROSAT Status Report #170: ROSAT NEWS No. 63: AO-9 Status

[Michael Arida <arida@milkyway.gsfc.nasa.gov>]

Date: , 16 Jul 1998 29:18:00 -0400
Subject: ROSAT NEWS No. 63: AO-9 Status



-------------------
Note: The deadline for ROSAT AO-9 proposals is now September 30, 1998
for all submissions to the U.S. ROSAT GOF.
-------------------

=========================================================================
=                                                                       =
=              ROSAT NEWS No. 63     ---    15-Jul-1998                 =
=                                                                       =
=-----------------------------------------------------------------------=
=                 ROSAT Scientific Data Center at the                   =
=       Max-Planck-Institut fuer Extraterrestrische Physik (MPE)        =
=               Postfach 1603, D-85740 Garching, Germany                =
=-----------------------------------------------------------------------=
=  e-mail address:   rosat_svc@mpe.mpg.de                               =
=  ROSAT Service Area (including ROSAT Data Archive):                   =
=   www address:  http://wave.xray.mpe.mpg.de/rosat                     =
=   ftp rosat_svc.mpe-garching.mpg.de      user: anonymous              =
=   interactive account (including ROSAT Result Archive):               =
=     telnet xray.mpe-garching.mpg.de  user: xray  no password          =
=-----------------------------------------------------------------------=
=  XUV Center: GXUVDC@AIT.PHYSIK.UNI-TUEBINGEN.DE                       =
=   WFC Archive access via telnet/ftp ait.physik.uni-tuebingen.de       =
=                                user: xuv  (password: xuv_archive)     =
=   www address:  http://astro.uni-tuebingen.de/rosat.html              =
=========================================================================

Contents: SATELLITE STATUS
          AO-9 DEADLINE SHIFTED TO SEPTEMBER 30, 1998
          DELAYED DATA SETS

SATELLITE STATUS
================
Unfortunately the attitude system of the satellite is still not working
properly with the startracker of the WFC in its control loop.
During the last week several recoveries from safemode were performed.
After the recoveries the satellite was pointed according to the nominal
timeline; however, there was no single pointing for which guide stars
could be acquired (although we had already a few successful pointings
around July 1). In each case the satellite again went into safemode
after a few hours. The reasons for the safemode triggers are not yet
understood: timing problems and a deterioration of the s-gyro are under
suspicion. The safemode data are being analysed by the attitude experts
at DASA and GSOC.

AO-9 DEADLINE SHIFTED TO SEPTEMBER 30, 1998
===========================================
Due to the above mentioned difficulties and in view of the fact that
the present period without observations extends now to almost 3 months,
it has been decided to shift the deadline for AO-9 by 2 months to
September, 30, 1998. The decision will effectively prolong the running
AO-8 observation period until February next year. Observations that
become accepted for AO-9 will then be scheduled after the end of the
present observation period.

As in previous occurences, observations that in total or in parts could
not be scheduled due to the actual satellite problems will be
rescheduled automatically in AO-8 or AO-9, if they belong to priority
classes A or B and have collected less than 70 % of their accepted
observation times.

We expect that only few observations of class C can be scheduled during
the rest of the AO-8 timeline (please check the timelines in
http://wave.xray.mpe.mpg.de/rosat/timeline/ for more information).
Therefore you should consider to submit class C proposals of AO-8 again
for the AO-9 period, if they were not already scheduled during AO-8.

DELAYED DATA SETS
=================
Due to problems at GSOC the data centers have not yet received  ROSAT
data from, at present, 16 ROSAT days dating back up to half a year.
Please look to
http://www.rosat.mpe-garching.mpg.de/rda/prc/missing-rors.txt
for detailed information on the affected sequences.

========================= end of NEWS ===================================