The IMAGE Monthly Camera

June 1996 - Number 1

Editor: J. L. Burch

SwRI, P.O. Drawer 28510
San Antonio, TX 78228-0510
tel: (210) 522-2526
e-mail: jburch@swri.edu

- Recent Activities
- Upcoming Events
- Highlights of the S/C Specifications
- NASA Support to IMAGE
- Request for IMAGE News Items

Recent Activities

Since the first IMAGE meeting, the main activity at SwRI has been the preparation of the RFP for the IMAGE spacecraft. A draft RFP was published on the web, and several potential spacecraft contractors were interviewed. Their feedback led to modifications of the RFP, and a final version was sent to the requesters and was published on the worldwide web at http://espsun.space.swri.edu/~image/index.html. The proposals are due at SwRI on July 29, 1996. We have already received four letters of intent with two more expected. Thus, we should have plenty of competition for the s/c contract. We plan to select a contractor by the end of August, which would allow the selected contractor to participate in the Mission Requirements Review, which should be scheduled sometime in September.

Bill Gibson has started his instrumenter site visits this week with a trip to Lockheed Martin, U. C. Berkeley, and the Univ. of Arizona. Traveling with Bill are Steve Boyanowski (contract administrator), Michelle Chippie (subcontract manager) and Brian Gupta (QA engineer).

Jim Burch presented the IMAGE mission to the Committee on Solar and Space Physics (CSSP) on June 5th at the Beckman Center in Irvine. The CSSP was reviewing the Explorer program and was very interested in IMAGE, as well as TRACE, FAST, and the two STEDI missions, SNOE and Terriers.

Craig Pollock has joined SwRI, and is taking a prominent role in the MENA design. 3-D ray tracing of the complete instrument will be followed by construction and test of a new laboratory model MENA. Dave McComas will work closely with the SwRI group on MENA with particular interest in optimizing the UV rejection and overall geometric factor.

Upcoming Events

During the week of June 24, Bill Gibson and his group will visit GSFC and U. Mass., Lowell.

On June 25-26 Toshi Mukai will visit SwRI to discuss plans for ISAS to supply microchannel plates for the neutral atom imaging instruments. On June 26 the HENA team will meet at SwRI to discuss the final design of the instrument with special consideration given to UV rejection, angular resolution, and mass resolution.

Highlights of the S/C Specifications

As a result of the decision to launch IMAGE on a Delta 7326 and of the informal discussions held with potential spacecraft contractors, several items in the s/c specifications were firmed up. The perigee altitude has been set at 1000 km. This number seems to be the best compromise among orbital lifetime, contamination, and RPI antenna deployment time. An analysis done by Dennis Chornay at GSFC shows that the radiation dose for both energetic protons and trapped electrons is only weakly dependent on perigee altitude between 500 km and 1500 km. Further refinements of the perigee altitude are possible during Phase B, but for the purposes of the spacecraft proposals it is fixed at 1000 km.

The EMI specification for the spacecraft is Mil Std. 461D. The desirability of maintaining power conversion oscillators at frequencies above 150 kHz is stressed in the s/c RFP. The cost of achieving the desired level of oscillator synchronization will have to be determined before a decision on its implementation can be made.

The type of contract planned for the s/c will be cost plus incentive fee. The fee structure will be based on schedule and cost control and on-orbit performance. In order to help keep the project within our cost cap, we need to eliminate as completely as possible any changes in the spacecraft requirements. The s/c specifications and statement of work have been mailed out to all IMAGE investigators. We all need to become familiar with these documents and design the IMAGE instruments within their constraints.

NASA Support to IMAGE

As discussed by Orlando Figueroa and Bob Carovillano at our first team meeting, several very experienced people are dedicated to supporting our mission at NASA Headquarters and GSFC. Among the key people assigned to IMAGE are:

Bob Carovillano - IMAGE Program Scientist

Mike Calabrese - IMAGE Program Manager

Orlando Figueroa - Explorer Project Manager

Frank Volpe - IMAGE Mission Manager

Mark Smith - IMAGE Mission Scientist

Bill Davis - MIDEX Instrument Manager

Richard Claffy - MIDEX Flight Assurance

Request for IMAGE News Items

All IMAGE team members are requested to send any items of interest to Jim Burch for inclusion in the next issue of the Monthly Camera. Information on developments in modeling and instrument design are particularly welcome to help all the IMAGE investigators to become knowledgeable in the capabilities of our mission.

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