AIM - The Mission

On the evening of Jan 12, the spacecraft went into safehold when the onboard computer experienced a problem. This caused the instruments to automatically turn off and point the solar arrays towards the sun. It appeared very similar to the safehold events AIM had experienced previously. The operations team quickly started recovery procedures that night and by Jan 16 the spacecraft was once again in nominal operations. SOFIE, CIPS, and CDE are back to taking science data.

The SOFIE instrument was operating nominally up to the recent spacecraft safehold event. Measurement quality is unchanged. SOFIE is expected to be back in operation this weekend.

There is a delay in releasing December 08 data due to a periodic failure to adequately correct for pointing error. A correction for the problem is being developed and will be implemented within the next two weeks. This appears to affect about 15% of the events, but all of December through present has been held while validation of the fix is completed. This validation includes fully understanding why the pointing problem appears to be a recent phenomenon. We are in the process of validating and releasing the ~ 85% of the data that are unaffected. The release should be complete by next week.