S.E. Paswaters
Interferometrics Inc.
R.A. Howard
Naval Research Lab.
D. Wang
Interferometrics Inc.
The LASCO/EIT instruments aboard the SOHO satellite (launched Dec 1995) were developed with complicated image processing/acquisition techniques. The Planning and Scheduling Tool was designed allow the user to easily take advantage of all available resources of the four telescopes (LASCO's three coronagraphs and the EIT Telescope) to maximize the use of the telemetry downlink. The Planning Tool allows users to develop customized observing sequences while monitoring compression factors and on-board processing times to realistically work within the limits of the instruments. The Scheduling Tool then graphically displays scheduled sequences and highlights potential resource conflicts. Sequences are saved in database tables as "as planned Observations" and are available to be retrieved at any later date. Outputs include: database updates, Inputs to the SOHO science activity plan, and the command loads themselves. Statistics are gathered after the images are received so the tool is constantly improving its estimate of processing time and compression factor.