STATUS:
12.10.2012
Spacecraft Status
AIM continues to be performing well. There was an eclipse of the sun by the moon seen by AIM on November 13. The spacecraft was successfully commanded to handle this event and there were no issues during the eclipse. All spacecraft subsystems continue to operate nominally.
Instrument Status
SOFIE: The SOFIE instrument has completed over 5.5 years of operation without flaw and all instrument parameters and data remain within nominal limits. Figure 1 presents the measured IR extinction profile from the first PMC of the southern hemisphere summer detected on November 13, 2012. This is the earliest date that SOFIE has detected PMCs and precedes the 2009 southern season by one week.
The current data version is V1.2 and the measurements are available shortly after they are collected and validated. New data files which contain one parameter (e.g., temperature, H2O, etc…) for the mission to date (referred to as L2 mission files) are now available online.
CIPS: The CIPS instrument continues to perform well, with no health issues. The first cloud of the Southern Hemisphere 2012-2013 PMC season was detected on 15 November, earlier than in any other season observed thus far. This is somewhat surprising, given that the increasing solar cycle would normally mean fewer clouds. The possibility that the early start to the season was caused by an early shift in the stratospheric winds to their summertime condition is being investigated. PMCs so far this season are plentiful and diverse; the figure here shows the CIPS "daily daisies" for several days this season.
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