Polar Project Status October, 2002

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Polar Project Status October, 2002
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State of the Spacecraft

• The Polar spacecraft and instruments are healthy.
  Only the plasma wave instrument and the MICS
  sensor portion of CAMMICE have suffered major
  faults PWI now operates only during eclipse.
• Polar has initiated semi-annual attitude
  maneuvers to extend orbit normal operations for
  auroral imaging and optimize fuel usage.
• At ecliptic normal, despun platform control and
  auroral viewing is limited to an 4.5 hour
  segment of each 17 hour orbit.

March 18, 2002 half flip to ecliptic
normal Fall 2002 half flip to orbit
normal Spring 2003 full flip to orbit normal
for southern winter auroral viewing Fall 2003
half flip to ecliptic normal (permanent)
CAMMICE, CEPPAD, EFI, HYDRA, MFE, PIXIE, PWI,
SEPS,TIDE, TIMAS, UVI, VIS
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Status of the Science

• Polar completed a prolonged observation campaign
  through the dayside equatorial magnetopause
  region with unprecedented high-temporal and
  spatial resolution. Now conducting a similar
  campaign across the nightside equatorial
  magnetosphere.
• Polar, IMAGE, Cluster, Wind and Geotail will hold
  a collaborative workshop on the dayside
  magnetopause and cusp at Yosemite in Feb. 2003.
• Polars auroral science progressed to studies of
  the conjugate aurora. Some initial findings
• Onset brightening first seen in southern
  hemisphere with northern hemisphere onset
  detected 1 min. later
• Expansive phase brighter in southern hemisphere
  but located 45min earlier in local time in the
  north.
• A JGR special section on "Causes of the Aurora"
  will appear soon.

thermal plasma, accelerated by circularly
polarized waves, is regularly seen in the dayside
boundary layers
More than ten "great" conjugate events have been
captured including this substorm onset on 1 Nov
2001
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Mission Operation and Ground Data Processing
Then and Now
lt4.172M
4.144M
Polar, Wind and Geotail mission operations and
ground data processing combined
7.625M
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Status of the Mission Operation and Ground Data
Processing Re-engineering
9 re-engineering tasks were originally
identified

1. Unattended spacecraft contacts for data playbacks
2. Cross-training of flight operations personnel
3. Re-hosting the CMS for security and obsolescence
   issues
4. Re-hosting of NRT data service
5. Automation and re-hosting of KP processing
6. Simplifying online distribution of LZ and
   ancillary data
7. Automation of CD production
8. Re-hosting of the project web site
9. Streamlining NRT to include LZ processing and QL

FOT cost Reduction
CHDF and SPOF cost reduction
Future of Wind
Completed, in ring-out phase In acceptance
testing Started In planning phase, initial
testing complete
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Ground Data ProcessingWhat was Lost? What was
Gained?
With respect to Polar, Wind and Geotail, all data
services previously required from the ISTP/CDHF
and ISTP/SPOF have been retained.

• ISTP services no longer provided
• systematic collection of data products from
  associated missions
• KP CD distribution (impact is to Russian and
  South American data repositories)
• dedicated program assistance center
• off-hours data processing or problem response
• automated data pushing to clients
• quality control services of the ISTP/CDHF
• problem response and quality control services of
  the ISTP/SPOF

• Services improved
• open ftp access to the full data set
• HTR data produced in addition to KP, software
  easily updated
• automated processing brings faster turn around of
  products

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Who Gets the Credit The Ground Data Processing
Re-engineering team
The success of the re-engineering effort is due
to the cooperative efforts of several groups at
GSFC who provided full- and part-time
programming, system admin, design and management
expertise.
With specific tasks consulting by
The core team
587 Jim Byrnes
587 Chris Howard
423 Jeff Lubelczyk
632 Rick Burley
632 Tami Kovalick
632 Natalie Jaquith
690 Sandy Kramer
contr. Jim Legg
632 Bobby Candey
696/583 David Berger
587 Ryan Boller
587 Marlo Maddox
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Long Term Funding Profile

• The PWG infrastructure held within CSOC has
  decreased dramatically over the past year. Some
  CSOC cost estimates for FY03 do not reflect this
  decrease.
• Conducting future mission operations under the
  current contracting mechanism does not appear to
  be economically feasible under the current long
  term funding profile.

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Contracting for Future Mission Services
A six-month NOI to remove mission operations
services from the CSOC contract was submitted.
Arrangements for continued operations are being
actively pursued.
Option Roadblock Issues Status
Direct contract with Honeywell Waiver of requirement for transfer to educational or research related location Direct contract not permissible w/o extended competition cycle ID/IQ, permission to add task to MIDEX ID/IQ or start new ID/IQ Preferred method currently pursuing ID/IQ and waiver.
Contract with educational or research location May want waiver on 6-month pull-out requirement Contractual and management layer between NASA and MO team USRA and Capital College are willing
Remain with CSOC Uncertainty regarding post-CSOC Operations reliability and safety Changes remain costly and slow Negotiations continue with regard to cost and staffing levels
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Regarding Data Availability

• ISTP required special event archiving, rather
  than the full data set, as has become common with
  recent missions. Data accessibility was the
  responsibility of the project.
• Many Polar instrument teams have adjusted their
  data archiving and accessibility as is possible
  within their IT infrastructure and funding.
• Continuous HTR data from PWI, TIMAS, and TIDE.
  CAMMICE and CEPPAD soon.
• TIDE, PWI and MFE provide interactive data
  processing via the web.
• Additional progress can be made over the next
  year
• HYDRA has HTR data software, needs to convert
  format to CDF.
• UVI, VIS and PIXIE could archive continuous HTR
  rather than events.
• MFE should update IT infrastructure and/or PWG
  project should produce MFE KP.
• PWG project should create and host software
  library for access to LZ
• PWG project could encourage and/or host
  additional interactive data processing.
• Progress depends on
• MODA contract mechanism that allows appropriate
  control over PWG re-engineering.
• Small augmentations to team funding for specific
  data processing/accessibility tasks.

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Summary

• The Polar spacecraft and instruments are healthy.
• Science progress over the past two years has been
  particularly robust. Prospects for further
  breakthroughs with respect to substorm and
  reconnection physics appears very strong.
• Science funding has been relatively stable. FY02
  funding was, on average, 90 of FY01 levels.
  Funding profiles for FY03 are budgeted at FY02
  levels.
• The new mission operations and ground data
  processing systems are operating and serving the
  science community well. Several important
  re-engineering tasks remain to be completed by
  the end of December 02.
• Conducting future mission operations under the
  current contracting mechanism does not appear to
  be economically feasible under the current long
  term funding profile.
• A six-month notice, effective Sept. 30, for
  discontinuation of CSOC services was submitted.
• Arranging for an alternate contracting mechanism
  for mission operations remains difficult.
  Several avenues are being pursued.
• A plan to implement additional data accessibility
  improvements is under development.

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Backup Slides
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Summary Then and Now
Polar, Wind and Geotail mission operations and
ground data processing combined
2.6M
7.625M
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Review of the ISTP Data System(an independent
entity to serve the worldwide SEC community)

• In addition to
• data processing and distribution services for GGS
  (Polar, Wind, Geotail) IMP-8,
• data distribution services for SOHO and Cluster,
• operations and science coordination,
• ISTP served as a one-stop data source by
• consolidating and distributing data for 15
  additional spacecraft, observatories and TM
  programs
• providing extensive data and media integrity and
  quality services.

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Initial Courses of Action

• The ISTP project office was disbanded and
  reduction of past ISTP activities occurred during
  October and November of 2001.
• ISTP ground system services immediately reduced
  were
• QuickLook data processing for special requests
  only,
• key parameter CD distribution reduced from
  12,300 to 156 per year,
• no key parameter re-processing,
• no key parameter software updates,
• no ground based or collaborative mission data
  processing or ingestion,
• no dedicated program assistance center,
• no system software updates excepting security
  patches,
• no test or development environment, and
• no off-hours data processing or problem response
• services of the ISTP SPOF and Command Management
  System were consolidated with the MOC and the
  project scientist's office.

Note Items in blue have been restored within the
new PWG data processing environment
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Initial Courses of Action

• Contacted instrument teams regarding requirements
  for various operations and data services.
• Produced prioritized requirements document for
  Polar, Wind and Geotail. (available at
  http//tide.gsfc.nasa.gov/studies/POLAR/Polar_Ops_
  specs_25Jun02.pdf)
• Conducted six feasibility studies for alternative
  approaches
• 1) the present ground system management under
  CSOC (2 studies)
• 2) SPDF at GSFC under the direction of Bob
  McGuire
• 3) LASP at U Colorado under the direction of Bill
  Peterson
• 4) UC Berkeley under the direction of Bob Lin
• 5) the NSSTC under the direction of Dennis
  Gallagher

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Results of Feasibility Studies

• The following conclusions and actions resulted
  from the review of the studies
• More software and system re-engineering needed to
  be pursued than provided for by the CSOC/CDHF
  study and CSOC estimates for flight operations.
• Eight re-engineering projects were identified to
  reduce the number of FTEs by three-quarters.
• The re-engineering work should be performed
  under local control.
• The UC Berkeley capabilities for hosting mission
  operations remain of interest.

It was determined that a consolidation of all
systems under the PWG Mission Operations Center
(MOC) under an ID/IQ contract, as suggested by
the SPDF study, offered the most cost effective
solution with the least disruption to flight
operations and the least risk to spacecraft
health and safety.
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Plan for Re-engineering
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Re-engineering tasks with greatest short term
payoff

1. Unattended spacecraft contacts for data playbacks
2. Cross-training of flight operations personnel
3. Re-hosting the CMS for security and obsolescence
   issues
4. Re-hosting of NRT data service
5. Automation and re-hosting of KP processing
6. Simplifying online distribution of LZ and
   ancillary data
7. Automation of CD production
8. Streamlining NRT to include LZ processing and QL

Reduction of FOT
Elimination of CHDF
For the future of Wind
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Cross-training of FOT Personnel
Current
After
1 flight ops lead
Flight ops lead
6-7 console operators
4-5 console operators
Ground System Engineer
2 CMS operators
1 DSN scheduler
2 spacecraft engineers
Instrument Engineer
DSN scheduler
Spacecraft Engineers
1 ground system engineer
1 instrument engineer
still to be implemented
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Re-hosting the CMS for Security and Obsolescence
Issues
After
Current
Bldg. 2
Bldg. 3
spof7.gsfc.nasa.gov outside firewall,
receives/relays commands verifications
spof1.gsfc.nasa.gov outside firewall,
receives/relays commands verifications
TCP/IP
Decnet push, identified as security risk
FORMATS secure relay across firewall
CMS inside firewall, verifies command sequences,
etc., on older VMS machine
CMS inside firewall, verifies command sequences,
etc., re-hosted on new PC
Bldg. 3
Bldg. 3

• Notes
• Core CMS software remains the same.

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Unattended Spacecraft Contacts for Data Playbacks
Current
Proposed
6-8 console operators, covering 24x7, typically 4
shifts of two operators, Wind 1 contact/3
days, Polar 4 contacts/day, All attended contacts
4 console operators, covering 16x5, Wind 1
contact/3 days, Polar 3-4 contacts/day, TBD
number of unattended contacts

• Notes
• Fewer attended contacts/fewer double attended
  contacts may mean less convenient or delayed
  command scheduling.
• Errors at DSN sites will mean result in several
  hours of data loss for Polar and several days of
  data loss for Wind.

still to be implemented
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New Science Data System Overview

• The following Polar, Wind and Geotail services
  provided by ISTP were retained
• Near Real Time (NRT) data, open line access
• Quicklook (spacecraft playback) data, online
  access
• Level Zero data processing, online and CD
  distribution
• Geotail Sirius data processing, online access
• Key Parameter data processing, online and
  limited CD distribution
• Ancillary data processing, online access

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Automation of KP Processing
Before
Now
TAE GUI interfaces on VAX to shift of operators
Automated file processing
Custom software Oracle on Dec Alpha control
processing
Consolidation to single machine with ready access
to data
Software library converted to collection of
individual processes
Frozen software library
Extensive quality checking
Limited quality checking

• Notes
• Routine quality checking of KP file production
  will reside with instrument teams.
• New high time resolution and Key Parameter
  software routines can be readily added by the
  instrument teams to the software library.

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Simplifying Online Data Distribution
Before
Now

• Notes
• Data access by open ftp
• LZ data older than 2-3 months is gzip compressed
• All data is public including NRT, QL, LZ, KP,
  ancillary

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Automation of CD Production
Before
Now

• Notes
• DVDs for Polar_all, Wind_all and Geotail_all
  distribution
• Quality control of CD product to be performed by
  receiver limited replacements possible

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Streamlining NRT Processing to Include LZ and QL
Before
After
Bldg. 23
NRT for Wind Polar rehosted to Dec Alpha
Wind/Polar NRT on older microVaxs
Wind/Polar NRT on older microVaxs
Wind/Polar NRT on older microVaxs
Wind/Polar NRT (on older microVaxs)
LZ for Wind Polar rehosted to Dec Alpha
Bldg. 3
Bldg. 3
Wind/Geotail QL LZ
Geotail QL LZ
Polar QL LZ
Unix using LabView Oracle

• Notes
• Software port process should be transparent to
  instrument teams.
• File types and formats would remain identical..
• Routine quality checking of LZ data files will
  reside with instrument teams.
• Reprocessing/replacement of LZ data may be
  limited to 1-2 months after receipt of files.
• There will be some data loss.

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Schedule for Remaining Re-engineering Activities
streamlining NRT to include LZ and QL
CD system
burning in of new PWG data system
transition to new CMS
cross-training of flight operations personnel
unattended spacecraft contacts for data playbacks
Oct
Nov
Dec
Jan
Feb
Mar
Apr
2002
2003
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Concerns on the Project Side

• With Respect to Mission Operations
• Can we find a contractual environment for
  operations that is affordable and legal?
• Can the re-engineered system collapse to an
  affordable Wind-only environment after Polar and
  Geotail end of missions.
• What is the minimum data recovery percentage
  acceptable in light of fiscal constraints imposed
  on extended mission programs.

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Mass and energy coverage of the Polar particle
instrumentation packages
Polar remains the best instrumented spacecraft in
the magnetosphere.
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Exploring the Sun-Earth System

• An alliance of solar, heliospheric and geospace
  missions for the coordinated study of Sun-Earth
  system dynamics.

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Alliance Objectives

• The SEC Alliance of spacecraft will expand the
  scientific productivity of the individual
  missions by fostering joint scientific analyses
  of phenomena that originate at the sun, propagate
  through interplanetary space, and impact the
  Earth's magnetosphere and upper atmosphere.

Targeted objectives include Understand the
coronal causes of heliospheric disturbances
Determine the evolution of disturbances within
the heliosphere Understand the coupling of
solar wind energy to geospace Understand the
coupling of energy from the magnetosphere into
the atmosphere
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Alliance Activities

• Sponsor analysis campaigns focused on specific
  science problems that bridge mission objectives.
  To date
• Energy transfer across the dayside magnetopause
  and through the cusp
• Propagation of disturbances through
  interplanetary space

Sponsor opportunities for collaboration
Yosemite 2002 Magnetospheric imaging workshop
Geospace Workshop - Feb 2002 Joint SOHO-ACE
workshop - Mar 2002 Spring AGU 2002 special
sessions sponsored by Alliance members
Tentative Fall 2002 Interplanetary disturbance
propagation workshop Yosemite 2003 The cusp
and dayside magnetopause
Joint E/PO Activities EOS Alliance article
Web home page Aurora poster
Flyers/pamphlets on popular SEC science
topics Updating/re-issuing popular ISTP
products
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