During the last week Chandra completed the observing schedule as planned. The schedule had been replanned to incorporate Director's Discretionary Time Targets of Opportunity observations of CXOJ122518.6+144545 and ASASSN-14li. An observation of the Chandra Deep Field-South was impacted by the replan and will be rescheduled in a future week.

Two flight software patches were uplinked on on Dec 8. The first patch contained updates to the long-move durations for LETG insertion and HETG retraction and to enable the mechanism control electronics hardware lockout for HETG retraction so that it can sometimes prevent bumper impact. The second patch was an update to the read mode settings, heater setpoints, and deadband count values for several thermistors, located on the -Z side of the optical-bench assembly and spacecraft struts, in order to provide for a wider range of temperature readings. The second patch also increased the spacecraft strut maximum temperature thermal health-check threshold. These updates are in response to increasing temperatures due to degradation of the Observatory's thermal covers during the mission. Real-time procedures were executed on Dec 8-9 to dump OBC-A memory as a follow-up to the patches. The dump will be used to update the baseline memory image maintained on the ground.

A Chandra image release was issued on Dec 11 describing observations of NGC 2207 and IC 2163, two spiral galaxies in the process of merging. This pair contains a large collection of super bright X-ray objects called "ultraluminous X-ray sources". Astronomers have found evidence for three supernova explosions within this pair in the past 15 years. For details see: http://chandra.si.edu/photo/2014/ngc2207/

The schedule of targets for the next two weeks is shown below and includes an observation of CXO J122518.6+144545, which is a follow-up to a Director's Discretionary Time Targets of Opportunity approved on Nov 26, an observation of SDSS J152304.97+114553.6, which was accepted as Director's Discretionary Time Targets of Opportunity on Sep 25, and observations of M87 and PG 2112+059 coordinated with HST.