Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope

Monthly Operations Report

Status as of September 30, 2023

Table of Contents

1. Science/Technical Highlight (Anyone)

2. Photos (Anyone)

3. Directorate (Thomas and Dave)

3.1 Activities

3.2 Financial Status

• DKIST operations carried forward approximately $28.16M in unencumbered funds into FY 2023 from previous years.  A total of $X.XXM in new funding has been obligated by NSF thus far in FY 2023 for a total of $YY.YYM.

• Financial status of 31 Aug 2023

  • DKIST operational expenditures for August 2023 were $Z.ZZM

  • Total YTD expenditures for DKIST operations are $XX.XXM.

  • The average DKIST spending for FY 2023 (burn rate; BR) is $Y.YYM/month.

4. Science Operations (Ali and Andres)

4.1 Cycle 2 Experiment Generation

• The Cycle 2 experiment generation process has been completed. Nothing new to report.

4.2 Cycle 2 Observing

• tbd.

4.3 Operations schedule and training activities

• Daily schedule during the OCP2.4 observing window (25 Sep 2023 - 03 Nov 2023):

  • Arrive at DSSC (carpools): 4:45am

  • Leaving DSSC: 5:00am

  • Arriving at site: 6:00am

  • Start Observatory Shutdown: 2:00pm

  • Leaving site: 2:30pm

  • Arrive at DSSC (end of day): 3:30pm

• Science Operations schedules two Science Operations Specialists (SOS), and one Resident Scientist (RS) to support daily science operations at the summit.

5 Technical Operations (Heather and Paul)

5.1 Site & Facility Status

5.2 Site & Facility Repairs, Improvements & Upgrades

5.2.1 Electrical/Electronics

5.2.2 Facility Management System

5.3 Mechanical/Thermal

5.4 Opto-Mechanical

5.5 Issues & Concerns

Environmental Safety & Health

6 Instrumentation Operations (Bret, Friedrich, and Dave H.)

6.1 Optics

6.1.1 System Optics

• M3 Spare coating samples were sent for ellipsometetric measurement along with a large batch of system optics (M2 through M10) for ongoing system coating model monitoring. Both the polarization system model and the flux budget will be updated accordingly. Additional cleaning information was collected from the vendor for testing on large samples coated along with the M3 Spare.

6.1.2 Facility Instrument Distribution Optics (FIDO)

• The GS50T950 beam splitter has shipped to Maui

• The redward drift of FIDO coating performance identified during ViSP 486nm observations is being assessed with additional ellipsometric data on coating witness samples. Additional metrology at the vendor is also being performed and processed by the DKIST team.

• The GS30T500 back side AR coating was done and coating stress interferometry data collected. The front side dichroic coating was adjusted to be slightly thicker per spectral metrology results. Stress test coatings are scheduled for next month.

6.1.3 Polarization Analysis and Calibration (PA&C)

• Coating development is progressing on the fringe-suppressed Cryo-NIRSP modulator upgrade project. Multiple additional coating runs are being done and assessed by the DKIST team to attempt fringe suppression at specific spectral line wavelengths.

• The MgF2 optical contact bonding post-fluid-jet-deterministic-polish (FJP) project received the first round of polished crystals for assessment at the DSSC Maui labs in our custom built spectropolarimeter (NDSP). Polishing results seem to indicate some anomalous polishing rates and similar non-uniform material properties. Our 4D PhaseCam profilometer was used to measure the surface micro-roughness impacts from the FJP processs. Assessment and data analysis is ongoing. An optical contact bond test will be performed in the coming weeks.

• The upgraded NDSP lab spectropolarimeter was used to measure the very large (160x90mm) retarder received from deterministic fluid jet polishing and zero-heat ion assist coatings. This retarder is part of the ViSP beam balancing project for mitigation of grating induced polarization using DKIST-team created retarder designs. Additional progress was made at the vendor in fabrication of a set of smaller retarders (98x58mm) also required as part of this upgrade project. The DKIST team played an active part in re-optimizing the designs and doing manufacturing tolerance analysis.

6.2 Summit Instrumentation

6.2.1 Instrument Systems

• Several hours of vibration monitoring was done September 7th and 8th. This included data with the Vibrometer mounted on the ViSP bench, wavefront telemetry data, and mechanical accelerometer data taken in coordination with TechOps team. The air handling units (AHUs) were run at various speeds and various equipment was switched off/on. Ongoing analysis of the combined data sets will assist with vibration assessment.

6.2.2 Wavefront Correction System (WFS)

6.2.3 Visible Spectro-Polarimeter (ViSP)

6.2.4 Diffraction Limited Near-Infrared Spectro-Polarimeter (DL-NIRSP)

6.2.5 Cryogenic Near-Infrared Spectro-Polarimeter (Cryo-NIRSP)

6.2.6 Visible Broadband Imager

6.7 Multi-Conjugate Adaptive Optics (MCAO)

6.8 High Level Software (HLS)

6.9 Infrared Cameras

7 Data Center Operations (Bob and Alisdair)

7.1 Hardware Infrastructure

7.2 Software Infrastructure

7.2.1 Data Center

7.2.2 Portal/Archive

7.3 Science Data Processing

7.3.1 Calibration Pipelines

7.3.1 Data Released

• There were a total of XX data sets released to their PIs and a total of YY data sets released to the public this month.

DataSets Released to PIs

Datasets Made Public