Date: Sat, 17 Aug 2002 20:19:03 -0400 From: Kimberly Strong To: MANTRA email list Subject: MANTRA 2002 - August 17 Status MANTRA 2002 - August 17 Status Greetings from Vanscoy, Most members of the Science Team are now in Saskatoon, having arrived over the past few days. On site at Vanscoy are: - Tom McElroy, Jonathan Davies, Bob Hall, Aaron Ullberg, David Tarasick, David Barton, and Akira Ogyu from MSC - Martin Tingley, Matt Toohey, Elham Farahani, Caroline Nowlan, Ben Quine, Debra Wunch, Hongjiang Wu, and Kim Strong from U of Toronto - Pierre Fogal and John Olson from U of Denver - Florence Goutail and Jean-Pierre Goutail from Service d'Aeronomie - Kaley Walker from U of Waterloo - Brian Solheim from York U - and numerous people from SIL Unpacking is just about finished, and computers and instruments are are all out and in various stages of testing and assembly. Our overall schedule is: August 17-19 - payload integration and instrument testing Monday August 19 - test SPS-B1, MAESTRO-B, MSC FTS with pointing system Tuesday August 20 - hanging test with crane Weds. August 21 - instrument alignment with sun, RFI test Thursday August 22 - dry run (evening) Saturday August 24 - flight ready So we are still aiming to be flight ready for August 24. Yves Rochon is producing forecast trajectories for us to help in flight planning. Nearly all of the mechanical integration and much of the electrical integration was done in Toronto. The schedule for checking electrical integration here is currently: - UV sonde and ozonesonde done - DU FTS done - today - SPS-B1, SPS-B2, OH, radiometers, pointing system - August 18 - MSC FTS - August 19 - MAESTRO-B Our instrument status and plans are currently as follows, although our schedule is fluid at this stage: Ground-based MSC Brewer - started measurements of ozone on Tuesday August 13 Ground-based York U AOTF spectromter - unpacked yesterday, just taken outside to begin measurements today - plan to set up telescope for night-time observations tomorrow Ground-based U of T zenith-sky spectrometer - set up today, just began recording spectra, should get sunset data Ground-based MSC SPS-G - dealing with power supply current limit (see below) - working on software to control sun-tracker Ozonesondes - first flight on August 15, reached 8 mbar, package was recovered using new GPS sonde - second flight this morning (dual balloon), reached 20 mbar (~25 km) - electrical integration of UV sonde and ozonesonde for main payload done today - need to add capacitor and foil to UV sonde to eliminate RFI MSC SunPhotoSpectrometers (SPS-B1, SPS-B2, SPS-G) - mechanical alignment done in Toronto - electrical integration underway today - need to modify add diode to power supplies to deal with current limit and measure length of current spike - need to make covers for power supplies, and insulate power supplies and instruments - absolute and wavelength calibration on ~August 20 MAESTRO-B - functional in both channels but both are noisy - investigating at noise issue - need to make lid and insulate, and do calibration - integration planned for August 19 U of Denver FTS - mechanical and electrical integration done - needs alignment, then solar measurements to test detector alignment and set gains (10-20 hours work) MSC FTS - mechanical integration done in Toronto - turns on, need to test alignment and align with pointing system - electrical integration planned for August 18 - solar tests planned for August 19 MSC OH Spectrometer - mechanical integration done in Toronto - electrical integration started today - works, did mercury lamp scan today - needs alignment and focussing - may add sun sensor at 90 degrees to ensure correct azimuth pointing MSC Emission Radiometers - mechanical integration done in Toronto - electrical integration just completed today - calibration planned for August 18-19 - need to turn on, make covers for viewports, check preflight LN2 fill Service d'Aeronomie SAOZ - tested today, works okay - need to arrange mounting on flight train - will include in hanging test Pointing System - works, reaction wheel and downlink okay - electrical integration just completed today - need to get serial ports working to accomodate three instruments - fill reaction wheel with epoxy today - need to modify software to integrate reaction wheel and set up automation of measurements The MANTRA 2002 web site is at http://www.atmosp.physics.utoronto.ca/MANTRA We will try to get photos and updates posted there soon. All for now. Kim ---------------------------------------------------------------- Dr. Kimberly Strong, Associate Professor Department of Physics, University of Toronto Room MP 710A, 60 St. George Street Toronto, Ontario, M5S 1A7, Canada Telephone: (416) 946-3217, Fax: (416) 978-8905 Email: strong@atmosp.physics.utoronto.ca http://www.atmosp.physics.utoronto.ca/ http://www.atmosp.physics.utoronto.ca/people/strong/strong.html ----------------------------------------------------------------