Wednesday, July 11, 2018

Today's Maneuver and Schedule for the rest of 2018

Today at 1500 UTC (11:00 am ET) SDO will perform the HMI roll. The spacecraft rolls once around the axis pointed towards the Sun to provide calibration information for the instruments. These measurements are also used to learn how round the Sun is.

Here are other planned maneuvers through the rest of 2018.

  • 07/18 @ 1945 UTC (3:45 pm ET) - Momentum Management #32
  • 07/21 @ 0433 UTC (12:33 am ET) - Handover Season Starts with First Handover
  • 07/25 @ 1230 UTC (8:30 am ET) - EVE Cruciform
  • 08/08 @ to be determined - Simulated comet observation
  • 08/12 @ 0710 UTC (3:10 am ET) - Fall 2018 Eclipse Season Starts
  • 08/15 @ 2225 UTC (6:28 pm ET) - Station Keeping #17
  • 09/04 @ 0654 UTC (2:54 am ET) - Fall 2018 Eclipse Season Ends
  • 09/09 @ 2030-2130 UTC (4:30-5:30 pm ET) - Lunar Transit, 92% obscuration
  • 09/10 @ 0152-0241 UTC (9:52-10:41 pm ET) - Lunar Transit, 34% obscuration
  • 09/18 @ 0405 UTC (12:05 am ET) - Last Handover Completes & Handover Season Ends
  • 11/07 @ 2024-2116 UTC (3:24-4:16 pm ET) - Lunar Transit, 44% obscuration
  • 12/12 @ to be determined - Momentum Management #33

The pair of Lunar Transits on September 9th and 10th are separated by approximately 4 hours 22 minutes, so they are considered separate events. However, the relative motion of SDO and the Moon cause what could be a single transit to split into two. We will discuss this more as we approach the transits.

The sun and moon will be separated by 0.604° on August 21, 2018. (The Sun is 0.5° across, so the Moon is not in the field of view of the SDO images.) This is not close enough to be flagged as a transit, but the proximity may be of interest.