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Operations CXO Status Report

Friday 13 May 2005 9.00am EDT

During the last week the observing schedule was replanned to include an observation of GRB 050509b approved as a fast turn-around Target Of Opportunity (TOO) on May 8. Loads were replanned and uplinked on Mar 10. Observations of KS 1731-260 and 9 Sgr were impacted by the TOO and will be rescheduled for a later load. A second fast TOO was approved on May 11 to observe a high redshift blazar and loads were replanned and uplinked on May 12 for observation on May 13. The targets MACS0011.7-1523, PSS2322+1944, SDSS J0005-0006 and MACSJ0159.0-3412 were impacted and will be observed in a later load.

During a routine command load uplink on May 12 a ground system anomaly resulted in the uplink of an unexpected memory load to OBC-B. There was no operational impact from the uplink. Following checkout of the ground system and the development of a new ground monitor procedure, operations were continued in parallel with an investigation of the ground system problem. The OBC-B memory load was cleared with a real-time procedure on May 13.

A Chandra media telecon was held on May 10 to present a press release describing a long observation of the Orion Nebula. The data allowed the study the X-ray behavior of young Sun-like stars with ages between 1 and 10 million years and the discovery that these young stars produce violent X-ray outbursts that are much more frequent and energetic than seen from the Sun. For details see: http://chandra.harvard.edu/photo/2005/orion/

The schedule of targets for the next week is shown below and includes an observation of Sigma Gem coordinated with the VLA, VLBA and Merlin radio telescopes.

------------------------------------------
Radiation Belts                     May 15
Sigma Gem              ACIS-S/HETG  May 16
cl1354-0221            ACIS-I       May 17
Sigma Gem              ACIS-S/HETG
Radiation Belts                     May 18
RXJ0513.9-6951         HRC-S/LETG
IGR J16207-5129        ACIS-I       May 19
RXJ1856.5-3754         HRC-I     
Westerlund1            ACIS-S     
MACS1720.3+3536        ACIS-I       May 20
Radiation Belts
HD 179949              ACIS-S       May 21
M87                    ACIS-S     
PSR B1257+12           ACIS-S       May 22
HD 179949              ACIS-S

------------------------------------------

All spacecraft subsystems continued to support nominal operations.

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