ASPERA-3 July 25, 00 Monthly Status Report ASPERA Monthly Status ReportMonthly 7_25/ Page 1 Monthly Status Report Report due 7/25/00 Schedule statused as of July 7, 2000

ASPERA-3 July 25, 00 Monthly Status Report ASPERA Monthly Status ReportMonthly 7_25/ Page 2 Project Status Summary Technical May Jun Jul Detailed Description: (for items identified as yellow or red) Programmatic May Jun Jul Schedule May Jun Jul Resources May Jun Jul Over the last period we continued with flight fabrication and prototype testing. We continue to see no major show stoppers. Some of our biggest concerns continue to to be with outside purchases/subcontracts. We have already implemented some workarounds to maintain the schedule (with contingency). The current schedule does reflect all of the most recent delivery dates from outside vendors (as of 7/24/00) and an update to the schedule to regain schedule slack. Latest project photos are available on Aspera-3 web site.photos

ASPERA-3 July 25, 00 Monthly Status Report ASPERA Monthly Status ReportMonthly 7_25/ Page 3 Problem and Concern Summary P=Problem C=Concern R=Resolved

ASPERA-3 July 25, 00 Monthly Status Report ASPERA Monthly Status ReportMonthly 7_25/ Page 4 Accomplishments of the Last Month -ELS Ran High Voltage breakdown test. Test was very straightforward with no problems. Connected ELS end-to-end through GSE and tried to see electron beam. Successfully saw beam in all 16 sectors. One sector seemed very noisy, one sector seemed very weak. Examined pulse height distribution curves for flight MCP set. Threshold of ELS was set way to low. Pulled ELS out of the chamber and changed resistors to raise the threshold. Also “cleaned up” the wiring for the grounding of the ELS electronics. Realized that with the higher than expected required voltage for the MCP bias, we only have about 150 volts “headroom” on the power supply for operations(current max voltage is 2800 v). We decided for flight build to increase max voltage to 3000 v. Flight and flight spare HVPS are now being fabricated for max voltage of 3000 v. Received 2 nd of 5 flight MCP sets. Next possible set is at least a week away.

ASPERA-3 July 25, 00 Monthly Status Report ASPERA Monthly Status ReportMonthly 7_25/ Page 5 Accomplishments of the Last Month –ELS (cont.) Continued characterization testing. Spent lots of time chasing noise in the GSE and set up. This included reducing length of cables, adding shields, adjusting GSE s/w, characterizing the pulse shape at various locations in the test set-up, etc. When ELS is in the chamber without the housing, the background rate is approaching that of just the MCP after burn-in (can’t do any better than that). New Concern: When the Housing and Grid are installed, the background count rate goes up considerably. We are currently trouble shooting. Talked to Hyperfine – They increased their estimated late delivery because their subcontractor who does rough machining is late. As of 7/14/00, it looked like Hyperfine would be 8 weeks late on delivery of ELS mechanical parts. We have now pulled back rough machining and and are currently cutting metal on the flight and flight spare housing. High tolerance finish machining will still be done by Hyperfine. We have updated the schedule to reflect our current estimate for machining at SwRI, Hyperfine machining, and update on UV coating time needed.

ASPERA-3 July 25, 00 Monthly Status Report ASPERA Monthly Status ReportMonthly 7_25/ Page 6 Accomplishments of the Last Month - IMA Completed fabrication of the Pogo alignment jig. Disassembled IMA to examine problem of cracked MCP. It was determined that the failure was caused by a bending mode rather than crushing or a sharp bur. Have come up with a couple of possible reasons for failure. We are looking at modification of the design to correct the problem. The threshold of IMA also needs to be tailored to the MCP. It is likely that we are currently set to sensitive Started fabrication of FM and FS IMA anode boards. Stopped to work on ELS HVPS boards. Began fabrication of “test MCP” that strain gauges will be mounted to for MCP holder evaluation. We are focusing on ELS rather than IMA as it is critical path.

ASPERA-3 July 25, 00 Monthly Status Report ASPERA Monthly Status ReportMonthly 7_25/ Page 7 Accomplishments of the Last Month - Data Reduction Software Updated ASPERA-3.org Web Site Documentation Continued Updates to the ASPERA-3 Data System Interface Document Continued Formally Documenting APAF Software Requirements Continued Providing Technical Assistance for EPO Web Information Continued Defining and Implementing IDFS Web Tools Provided Software Support for ELS Characterization Held monthly ASPERA-3 Software Status Meeting (July 24, 2000) Article Published in July 2000 Issue of NASA Tech Briefs, "A Standard for Scientific Data Files", that Briefly Describes the IDFS Paradigm

ASPERA-3 July 25, 00 Monthly Status Report ASPERA Monthly Status ReportMonthly 7_25/ Page 8 Planned Activities for the Next Month - ELS (Hopefully) receive flight sets 3 and 4 of the MCPs Finish rough machining of ELS parts and receive high tolerance parts back from Hyperfine. Finish characterization testing of the ELS prototype. Begin environmental testing of the ELS prototype. Finish fabrication of the flight and flight spare HVPS and Amp boards. Finalize test procedures.

ASPERA-3 July 25, 00 Monthly Status Report ASPERA Monthly Status ReportMonthly 7_25/ Page 9 Planned Activities for the Next Month - IMA Finalize investigation of the MCP holder and make necessary modifications to prototype and flight / flight spare units. Finish fabrication of the Amp board and Digital Board. Fix pogo alignment in prototype. Change out FPGA on prototype. Finalize test procedures. Restart vacuum testing prototype, following ELS prototype testing to verify FPGA change.

ASPERA-3 July 25, 00 Monthly Status Report ASPERA Monthly Status ReportMonthly 7_25/ Page 10 Planned Activities for the Next Month - Data Reduction Software Tasks Deliver APAF Data System Interface Document (Due Aug. 18) Continue Formally Documenting APAF Software Requirements Continue Providing Technical Assistance for EPO Web Information Continue Defining and Implementing IDFS Web Tools Continue Providing Software Support for ELS Characterization as Needed Provide Software Support for Upcoming ASPERA-3 Team Meeting as Required

ASPERA-3 July 25, 00 Monthly Status Report ASPERA Monthly Status ReportMonthly 7_25/ Page 11 Problem and Concern Status Delivery of MCP’s from Burle : This is still a major concern. We have received 2 sets of mechanical samples, 1 set of flight reject plates, and 2 sets of plates that meet flight specs. The next potential delivery of flight plates will be in two weeks. Our schedule is still not effected by the delivery slippage. We have been in close contact with the Burle test engineer and he has been very forthcoming about status and providing us information.

ASPERA-3 July 25, 00 Monthly Status Report ASPERA Monthly Status ReportMonthly 7_25/ Page 12 Problem and Concern Status (cont.) Alignment of ELS : We found out that Hyperfine was projecting a delivery that was 8 weeks late largely due to their supplier being late. We have pulled the rough machining back in house and have prioritized the order of machining. Our goal is to have all parts needing UV coating (ie housings and inner deflection plates) completed by Hyperfine by mid- August.

ASPERA-3 July 25, 00 Monthly Status Report ASPERA Monthly Status ReportMonthly 7_25/ Page 13 Problem and Concern Status (cont.) Alignment of Pogos in IMA : We have completed modification of the fixture that holds the pogos in place during their assembly and soldering process. We have also modified the assembly and test procedures to include resistance-to-ground measurements that will verify the electrical connection after assembly, and prior to and after each environmental test. We will keep this issue a concern until the prototype is corrected and the assembly procedure is verified. We feel that this is only a small concern because after our problem, we consulted with some non-ASPERA personnel who have more experience using pogos. We have since incorporated their proven expertise into our assembly process.

ASPERA-3 July 25, 00 Monthly Status Report ASPERA Monthly Status ReportMonthly 7_25/ Page 14 Problem and Concern Status (cont.) MCP mount IMA : We are still in the process of determining the cause of the cracks in the IMA MCP. We have fabricated a “test MCP” out of thin aluminum that will be instrumented with strain gauges. We will reassemble the prototype with the psuedo MCP and measure the stress /strain during assembly. We will then make mods to the prototype mechanical pieces and verify stress / strain is reduced. We may also use this technique to verify flight parts.

ASPERA-3 July 25, 00 Monthly Status Report ASPERA Monthly Status ReportMonthly 7_25/ Page 15 Problem and Concern Status (cont.) High background rate in ELS: After a lot of effort debugging GSE, shortening cables, modifying ELS GSE software, we have gotten the background noise of the ELS sensor (without the housing and grid) to a background level comparable with the count rate for the MCP by itself. Early testing, however in the housing with the grid, showed very high count rates. We are in the process of investigating this problem. The first step is to see if the problem still exists since we have debugged the GSE, test set-up etc.

ASPERA-3 July 25, 00 Monthly Status Report ASPERA Monthly Status ReportMonthly 7_25/ Page 16 Schedule Summary ELS: The July 7th version of the schedule continues to show that the flight HVPS is the critical path for ELS (0 days of float). We simply started the fabrication of the HVPS later than we should have. The mechanical path is the second most critical caused by Hyperfine being late. ( 5 days of float) We adjusted the schedule over the last month incorporating many workarounds (ie. more realistic durations for some tasks, weekend, and shift work etc.) Note the schedule still has 21 days slack at the end (DEL0050) in addition to float shown for each task. MCP delivery is still not effecting the schedule.

ASPERA-3 July 25, 00 Monthly Status Report ASPERA Monthly Status ReportMonthly 7_25/ Page 17 Schedule Summary (cont.) IMA: The IMA schedule still shows 5 days float, this is of course dependent on the MCP mount investigation. We feel that worst case however, we will only need to modify or remanufacture a small number of mechanical parts. This will occur in parallel with the stuffing and bench check out of the amp and digital PC boards thus not effecting the schedule. Software activities continue to be on schedule. The full-up schedule is available on the ASPERA-3 Web site.schedule

ASPERA-3 July 25, 00 Monthly Status Report ASPERA Monthly Status ReportMonthly 7_25/ Page 18 ASPERA-3 PHASE B/C/D MASTER SCHEDULE