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HINODE MISSION STATUS
7 November, 2006
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All three instruments continue to observe the NOAA active region 10921. The spectropolarimeter (SP) and Narrowband Filter Imager (NFI) are acting together to obtain high-quality, magnetic field data, while the Broadband Filter Imager (BFI) obtains sequences of Ca II H and G-band images.
The focus position of the SOT was adjusted slightly to compensate for changes due to the reduced heat input into the telescope. A high resolution movie in Ca II H to observe spicules, was made. To be ready to observe the transit of Mercury on November 8, the spacecraft was tested by pointing to the limb.
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3 November, 2006
Sequences of observations in G-band and Ca II H with the Broadband Filter Imager (BFI) and line-of-sight magnetograms with Narrowband Filter Imager (NFI) were performed with the Image Stabilizer enabled. The series of images shows no fluctuation at all and have been made into nice movies without the displacement compensation. Filtergrams of Ca II H represent the mid-chromosphere at about 1000 km above the photosphere.
Movie data of such quality have never before been obtained.
Time series of magnetograms reveals the evolution of magnetic elements everywhere in the quiet Sun. The tentative plan for observations on 4 November is to track an active region. The target of that observation will be the active region NOAA 10921.
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26 October, 2006
The Solar Optical Telescope is performing very well. EIS is standing by for the opening of its clamshell doors, possibly on October 27th and 28th. The XRT continues with theengineering check-out and through-focus tests have been repeated.
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25 October, 2006
Hinode continues to perform well. The XRT obtained its first X-ray images on October 23 and visible light images on 24 October. The SOT top door was opened at 17:00 JST on 25 October and excellent quality solar images were almost immediately obtained.
The SOT has two doors, the side door and the top door.
The purpose of the top door was to prevent sunlight from entering the telescope until the attitude and orbital control of the spacecraft could be established (and also to somewhat protect the optics during launch).
After the top door opened today, solar images were acquired in several wavelengths using the broadband filter imager (BFI). The Correlation Tracker (CT), and the image stabilizing system, are also obtaining images.
The side door, which opened on October 14, has two purposes:
to discharge contamination from the optics (this is normal and in spite of clean-room techniques some contamination will always exist) and to dump unnecessary heat from the telescope.
Fine tuning the focus of the telescope will take place when the temperature inside the telescope becomes stable.
The SOT is the largest aperture, high-quality solar telescope to be flown in space, observing the Sun with high spatial resolution (0.2 arcsec). In addition, the SOT will for the first time, make accurate measurements from space of all three components (the VECTOR) of the solar surface magnetic field.
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16 October, 2006
The major elements of the spacecraft checkout have been completed. The last major test was the "safe-hold" test. Japan has not reported any significant issues or concerns with any of the spacecraft subsystems. Subsequently, the Mission Data Processor was turned on last Thursday and the instruments powered on shortly thereafter.
EIS Status:
The EIS was turned on successfully.
Temperature, voltage, and current were within the expected ranges.
The US supplied Mechanisms & Heater Controller (MHC) electronics will be checked out later this week.
SOT Status:
The SOT (both the Optical Telescope Assembly and the Focal Plane Package) has begun its initialization process.
In the first ground-station pass after FPP turn-on, the FPP structure operational heaters were enabled, and we were able to see that heater zones 1 - 4 are working normally.
In the next ground station pass about 90 minutes later, the decontamination heaters were enabled.
At this time the FPP appears to be functioning normally.
The OTA side-door deployment was completed (this is door where the heat dump mirror ejects the excess energy out of the side of the telescope)
XRT status:
The XRT was powered on in the wee hours of the morning on Friday (US time) October 13. The XRT door microswitch indicates the door is fully open. All the other bilevel status indicators were nominal.
Early on Monday, the XRT took its initial noise measurement of the CCD electronics. The camera and electronics appear to be in good shape. The noise will be further measured and evaluated in the upcoming days/weeks.
The XRT thermal modeling effort and investigation continues to make progress (albeit slower than the community would like). Basically the engineering team has one day of full XRT data and the weekend to look at it.
According to the current schedule a set of “through focus” engineering images will be made late this week.
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22 September, 2006
Solar-B, now named Hinode
(hee-no-de), was successfully launched from Uchinoura Space Center at
exactly 6:36 am
Japan time (September 23), 5:36 pm Eastern Time (September 22).
The Japanese M-V launch vehicle performed
flawlessly. Hinode achieved an orbit with a reported 682 km
apogee
and deployed the solar
arrays as planned. Output of the solar arrays was reported to be 100%.
The command to point to the Sun was given and within two minutes, Hinode
had acquired its target.
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15 September, 2006
All functional tests and visual inspections after docking the satellite to the
spacecraft were nominal. On September 10, the nose faring was attached (see picture). 3 days ago (September 12), the integrated spacecraft was
moved to the launch pad and Solar-B was mounted to the 1st and 2nd stages of
the rocket. Now, a big typhoon is headed toward Uchinoura Space Center
this week-end. All
activities have been scrubbed for today and tomorrow. The launcher will be moved
into place to help protect the vehicle from the typhoon and no impact to launch is expected.
Launch operations will be rehearsed Tuesday 19 September and will involve USC only. To follow the trajectory of the typhoon, see the Tropical Cyclone Information.
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The spacecraft arrived safely at the Uchinoura Space Center launch site,
following a 1000 km journey from Tokyo.
Tomorrow, the spacecraft will
be moved into the clean room where it will be checked-out.
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Presentations made at the Solar-B Special Session of the
Solar Physics Division of the American Astronomical
Society
may be found on the
Documents page.
See Solar-B Mission Status Images HERE.
Click HERE for previous status information.
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