FUSE News
Contents:
1) FUSE Launches Successfully!
2) Mission Status/Weekly Mission Updates
3) Target Acquisition update
4) Notes from the first FUSE Observers Advisory Committee meeting
1) FUSE Launches Successfully!
As we're sure you know by now, FUSE was successfully launched on
Thursday, June 24, at 11:44EDT, from the Cape Canaveral Air Station, pad 17A.
It was a sight (and sound and smell) for those of us at the Cape!
A launch day celebration was also held at JHU in Baltimore, with over 400
people attending. See
for an archive of launch related information and links to pictures!
2) Mission Status/Weekly Mission Updates
Satellite In Orbit Checkout (IOC) is proceeding according to plan.
We are currently (July 22) waiting for the spectrograph cavity to reach a low
enough gas pressure that the detector high voltages can safely be turned on.
In the mean time, the FES and related tracking tasks are being exercised.
Those of you interested in the progress of IOC and "Science Verification" (SV)
process, may follow it through weekly summaries of the status reports posted
at:
3) Target Acquisition update
Target acquisitions are one of the most demanding aspects of FUSE
operations. This is complicated by the fact that target acquisitions
occur autonomously, so that failed acquisitions can have detrimental affects
not only on a given observation, but potentially on those that follow in
the schedule as well. Thus, WE MUST TAKE A CONSERVATIVE APPROACH to target
acquisitions to prevent major disruptions in scheduled activities.
From an operations standpoint, there are many aspects of target acquisitions
that we do not know or understand in detail from our pre-mission perspective.
This also pushes us into a conservative stance, from which we will move only
as we learn more during IOC and the SV period. Since the acquisition mode is
tightly intertwined with the whole scheduling process, adjusting to the
changing situation is a painful but necessary process that requires iteration
of information in the Mission Planning Database (MPDB) and subsequent steps of
the scheduling process.
To help users in understanding what the "rules" and limitations are for target
acquisitions, we have placed a document on-line that discusses the assumptions
we are using to determine the acquisition modes for early Cycle 1 observations.
The document can be viewed and downloaded from:
or just click down to "On-line Technical Papers" from the FUSE home page.
4) Notes from the first FUSE Observers Advisory Committee meeting.
The first meeting of the FUSE Observer's Advisory Committee (FOAC) was
held on Wednesday, April 28th, 1999 at Johns Hopkins University. FUSE
Project personnel briefed the FOAC on the current status of the mission
and presented a preliminary timeline of significant activities for the coming
year. The NASA FUSE Project Scientist, George Sonneborn, identified the
following areas where advice from the FOAC would be particularly
helpful:
a. Implementation of the Cycle 1 GI program
b. FUSE data products and analysis
c. Cycle 2 NRA schedule and policies
d. Cycle 1 GI data analysis budgets
The minutes of the first FOAC meeting can be found at:
The FOAC membership is listed at:
We hope that the FOAC will serve as an effective advocate for the GI community.
In addition to the FUSE personnel at JHU and GSFC, you are encouraged to contact
the members of the FOAC if you have any FUSE-related concerns.
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The Observer's Electronic Newsletter is published Monthly by the FUSE project
and is aimed at the FUSE user community.
Editor: B-G Andersson, FUSE Guest Investigator Officer.
The FUSE Project is managed by Johns Hopkins University's Center for
Astrophysical Sciences in Baltimore, MD, for NASA's Goddard Space Flight
Center. The FUSE Principal Investigator is Dr. Warren Moos, the FUSE Project
Manager at JHU is Mr. Dennis McCarthy, and the NASA Project Scientist for FUSE
is Dr. George Sonneborn.
Further information about the FUSE Guest Investigator Program can be
obtained from: Dr. George Sonneborn; sonneborn@stars.gsfc.nasa.gov
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