CUBIC Turn-on Procedure

CUBIC personnel will be stationed at the MOCC during the entire CUBIC turn-on and the first month of CUBIC operations. They will be on-duty during all ground passes that occur in this time period, and will be responsible for generating CUBIC commands, verifying CUBIC status and performance, and for both quick-look analysis and more detailed analysis of the initial data from CUBIC . After one month, if everything is operating nominally, they will return to Penn State and further operations will be conducted from here. The CUBIC turn-on sequence is described in detail in a separate document entitled ``CUBIC Turn-on Procedure''. An outline of this turn-on sequence follows:

1. CUBIC turn-on will occur on Day 8 of the mission. CUBIC will be turned on by a real-time command transmitted at the beginning of a ground station pass so that the instrument housekeeping can be monitored in real time during the pass. The turn-on will occur on the first of a series of sequential ground station passes. The instrument turn-on sequence will initiate a self-test of the experiment, and the CPU will generate status information that is sent to the central C&DH housekeeping memory (see § 4.4.11). During the self-test, a special self-test format will be used on the serial housekeeping line to send information about the self-test status to the central housekeeping memory. The format of the self-test telemetry is given in Table 21. After the self-test is completed, CUBIC will be commanded to stripchart mode with 1 second intervals.
2. On CUBIC Passes 2 and 3 (where Pass 1 is the instrument turn-on), the CUBIC science data will be dumped to the ground and analyzed in detail to check instrument performance.
3. Assuming that CUBIC is healthy and housekeeping data collected during the first two orbits of operation looks nominal (including camera pressure), the CUBIC door will be opened on the fourth pass. The camera will then be allowed to outgas for two weeks before cooling down the CCDs. The stripchart interval will be changed to 10 seconds.
4. For the next two weeks, monitor HK data and record orbital trends.
5. On day 14 of the mission, upload the CUBIC software patch that corrects the corruption of the mean row during processing of compressed data frames. Test the patches by running the CCDs with serial clocks reversed.
6. Begin cooldown sequence on Day 22 of the mission.
7. Collect calibration data for one week. Collect data in different parts of orbit (day/night, dark Earth, bright Earth) and analyze backgrounds. Verify operation of CCDs in exposure to sky (NEP). Check changes in spectral resolution with exposure times of 30 and 40 seconds.
8. Begin in-flight calibrations:
   • Perform scans across Cyg X-2 to calibrate alignment between the magnetometers and collimator.
   • Measure the NEP spectrum at monthly intervals to monitor any long-term variations in performance.
   • Calibrate on the Crab when possible.
9. Begin normal flight operations.