been
received. RFA's from earlier SORCE reviews have seen progress and
some have seen closure.
SORCE
Science
June was an eventful month for the SORCE scientists.
1) Papers and talks pertaining to SORCE were presented at the AGU/APS
SPD meeting in Boston, at the "International Solar Cycle Studies
2001" Meeting in Longmont, and at the "Evolving Sun and
its Influence on Planetary Environments" Meeting in Granada,
Spain.
2) Longmont and Boulder meetings in early June brought a number
of visitors, including Gerhard Schmidtke from Germany, Claus Fröhlich
from Switzerland, Gerhard Thuillier from France, and Judith Lean
from NRL.
3) Co-Investigator, Dominique Crommelynck visited the week of July
9th and worked with Drs. Lawrence and Kopp on the TIM characterization.
4) The SORCE Science Team Meeting that had been scheduled for July
2001 has been postponed until after Observatory delivery to Orbital,
possibly November. It is our intention to hold two (2) SORCE Science
Team Meetings per year and we had planned to start in 2001 and continue
through the Mission. The summer 2001 meeting was originally scheduled
for July 9 to 11th, in Boulder. This meeting
has been delayed and will be rescheduled to a later date.
The reason for the July delay is the judgment that extramural activity
on the part of the instrument teams would have an adverse effect
on our final characterizations and preparations. The instrument
delivery schedule is now likely in early November. As soon as a
date is confirmed and a clear path to finishing the tasks ahead
is established the next meeting will be scheduled. The agenda of
this next Science Team meeting will be the careful examination of
all calibration data. A followon Science Team meeting concentrating
on the SORCE Science will now be scheduled in early 2002.
5) Dr. Doug Rabin, the Deputy Project Scientist for SORCE, visited
LASP and attended the July Monthly Review.
SORCE has received some disappointing news.
NASA announced last Friday that the UARS will be turned off as of
September 30, 2001. This decision has major negative impact on the
SORCE Science, and will severely compromise the relation of the
SORCE ultraviolet irradiance to the time period of UARS. Now the
long-term record of ozone and ozone change will not have the required
continuous
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and long-term
record of solar forcing. The peak levels of the present solar
cycle 23 will likely not be recorded, just as the peak of solar
cycle 22 and solar cycle 21 were missed. We have never obtained
complete observations through the maximum of a solar cycle. The
validation of the UARS SOLSTICE data and the evaluation of the
performance of that instrument would have been greatly improved
by overlap with the SORCE SOLSTICE.
SORCE
Instrument Status
The XPS is ready for flight. Mechanical assembly, electrical assembly,
functional checkout, environment test, and calibration testing
are all complete. The TIM is also assembled and complete. Mechanical
assembly, electrical assembly, functional checkout, and calibration
are complete. All that remains is environmental test, which has
just begun. SIM mechanical parts are 98% complete and electrical
parts are 95% complete. Mechanical assembly, electrical assembly,
and functional checkout are nearly complete. Environmental test
and calibration are in beginning process. SOLSTICE A is complete.
Mechanical assembly, and electrical assembly are complete. Functional
checkout is nearly complete as is calibration. Environmental test
has not yet begun. SOLSTICE B is likewise complete. Mechanical
assembly, electrical assembly, and functional checkout are nearly
finished. Calibration has just begun, and environmental test has
yet to begin. The Microprocessor Unit mechanical parts are 100%
complete, electrical parts are 98% complete, and mechanical and
electrical assembly are nearly done. Functional checkout has just
begun, and environmental test and calibration need to be addressed.
MU Software coding is nearly ready.
Meetings
SORCE scientists and engineers plan to present papers or attend
the following upcoming 2001 meetings:
- IAGA Session on Solar Variability August 2001 Hanoi, Vietnam
- Calcon 2001 September 2001 Logan, Utah
- NewRAD October 2001 Gaithersburg, Maryland
Please contact
kathy.lozier@colorado.edu
for information submission.
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