March 26, 2003

Things are happening at the speed of light! Normal operations commenced on March 6 when the instruments on-board SORCE began making daily solar observations. Data are received two times each day through either the ground station at Wallops Island, Virginia or the station at Santiago, Chile.

The instruments are performing wonderfully. All instruments are in normal mode and they are collecting solar data daily. Below is a brief summary of the current status of each SORCE instrument.

TIM – Breaking ground in TSI measurements, the TIM instrument is showing exciting promise. Scientists are working on data processing algorithms to implement the new phase sensitive detection method.
SIM – As a new invention, engineers and scientists are extremely pleased with SIM’s progress. Every mechanism and detector on SIM is functioning as it should, and the SIM team is currently in the midst of complex instrument calibrations.
SOLSTICE – Using the same stars for calibration purposes, the preliminary SORCE SOLSTICE results are in agreement with the UARS SOLSTICE measurements.
XPS – The first XPS measurements coming from SORCE compare very well with those of the XPS TIMED satellite measurements, which have been collected since January 2002.