gsh7w@astsun.astro.Virginia.EDU (Greg Hennessy) (12/05/90)
The outlook for getting science out of ASTRO is starting to look up. There was an estimate on the nature of the error in the star tracker. The star tracker is apparently more sensitive then expected, so more stars were being seen. Last night, at 01/23:00 Mission elapsed time, a patch was uploaded to the star tracker, and it immediatley passed its OPCAL, which is the calibration of the star tracker. The next object viewed was steady to 0.8 arcseconds. (The nominal value was 1.2 arc seconds, so the star tracker was better than expected.) The star tracker was fixed by a "patch" to the software. However, an additonal patch intended to clear up a related problem was applied to the wrong computer, which caused said computer to crash. This crash wiped out the patch, the program stored in permanent memory being incorrect. The patch had to be reloaded, and the calibration repeated, which was a loss of about 12 hours of data. The UV instruments are proceeding cautiously, but appears that scietific observations are being taken. The cameras are taking data from the LMC. BBXRT (Broad Band X-ray Telescope) was aligned yesterday, and achieved first light on the star Capella. There is no reason to expect that BBXRT will not start routine scientific data. The LMC is of intense interest to BBXRT, due to the presence of SuperNova 1987A. After the observation of the LMC, BBXRT will be observing the Crab NEbula. Other objects scheduled to be observed in this shift include Betlegeuse, The Cygnus Loop, The Perseus cluster, and M92. -- -Greg Hennessy, University of Virginia USPS Mail: Astronomy Department, Charlottesville, VA 22903-2475 USA Internet: gsh7w@virginia.edu UUCP: ...!uunet!virginia!gsh7w
jack@csccat.cs.com (Jack Hudler) (12/05/90)
In article <1990Dec4.181740.11408@murdoch.acc.Virginia.EDU> gsh7w@astsun.astro.Virginia.EDU (Greg Hennessy) writes: >There was an estimate on the nature of the error in the star tracker. >The star tracker is apparently more sensitive then expected, so more >stars were being seen. Where have I heard this before! :-) -- Jack Computer Support Corporation Dallas,Texas Hudler Internet: jack@csccat.cs.com