Tohban

From RHESSI Wiki

Latest revision as of 18:57, 28 September 2015

Tohban - (org.) japanese (def.) operator; duty officer

Link to extensive list of tohban material: Category: Tohban

Tohban Calligraphy

Duties

The job of the tohban is to help the spacecraft operators at the the Mission Operation Center (MOC), located in the north end of the second floor of the SSL Addition Building, to optimize the science quality of the observations, and maintain the working order of RHESSI's scientific instruments. Tasks include the following.

Daily

• Monitor solar activity. The Solar Monitor is a useful tool for this, as are the Max Millenium daily solar activity updates. Changes in solar activity levels may prompt actions such as changes in decimation states, and the current activity level should be taken into account whenever changes are made to the spacecraft program (i.e. spinups, detector changes, etc.) The Tohban Live page is also a good starter page that shows GOES activity and spacecraft status info.

• Monitor the SSR fill level. If the memory is not emptying after the daily pass set, steps may need to be taken to reduce the fill level, including changing the decimation state, changing the collection of nighttime data, or changing detector parameters if one detector is causing the high fill. In rare cases of extremely high activity, data could be deleted by moving the SSR pointers. Please try to avoid deleting day-before and day-after intervals used for gamma-ray background corrections if this becomes necessary.

• Monitor the Spacecraft Status page several times per day. This page updates once per minute during BGS and Wallops passes. Parameters that are out of range show up as red or yellow warnings. There are occasional glitches that cause values to be flagged as errors when they are not -- use judgment as to whether further action should be taken. (For example, if a parameter is in error consistently throughout a pass, or over more than one pass, then there is an error that needs to be fixed.) Look through past SOH plots to see if the parameter is unusual; send an email to Ops and the Tohban list if action needs to be taken or if you are not sure. Some past issues can be found on the "Log for tohban anomalies" page.

• Check detector monitor rates in the Browser for individual detector problems, such as a detector becoming very noisy or showing spikes in the rates. If you see something unusual, check the Detector Updates page to see if this is a known problem. Email the tohban list if a detector starts acting up.

Weekly

• Run the flare-counting software hsi_tohban_flare_counter as a nucleus of information for the weekly report.

• Check data gap records to see if there are any outstanding gaps during the week that have not been filled in. Bring it up at the Ops meeting if so.

• NEW!!! Look at long-term temperature trends to identify if anything has recently changed with the cryocooler operation. Long-term SOH trends, and also the plots generated by Kim's IDL routines, are best for this. Look at Cold Plate (especially #1) temperatures to see if fast changes are occurring (for example, on the order of >1 degree rise per month). Look at Cold Tip temperatures to ensure that we are staying below the "safe" cryocooler power-temperature curve.

• At the weekly Ops meeting, report on current solar activity, detector health, data gaps, and any other tohban issues.

• Write a weekly report and publish it on this Wiki (see previous Tohban Reports).

• Add any notes on individual detectors to the Tohban detector updates page.

• Add issue reports to the Log for tohban anomalies page.

Communication Protocol

• The Tohban is responsible for communicating any issues with the rest of the RHESSI team and to see the issue through until it is resolved.
• The Tohban should always email the entire tohban list with any issues, but if a knowledgeable person does not respond, the tohban should seek further help. The knowledgeable people include David Smith (detectors), Jim McTiernan (data), and Martin Fivian (SAS).
• The discussion of the issue should remain on the tohban list for the sake of visibility.

Tohban Context Tool

To get an idea of what RHESSI state-of-health (SOH) parameter values to expect at any given time, it is best to consult the RHESSI SOH data 1-day Averages page. This site has daily average values for all SOH parameters, both as ASCII text lists and as graphs of the values vs. time since launch.

You can also access the daily SOH plots that show more detailed plots of various SOH parameters for each day since launch.