Dec 18 2001
Two bugs have been discovered on version 3.707 of the NGIMS software. The first is the inability of NGIMS to do a "tableupdate" while in round robin mode. To change parameter values, system must go to standby first, then patch, round. The second bug is the packet data length within the CCSDC header of each telemetry packet from NGIMS has an incorrect value length. The length byte should have a value of 237 instead of 244. The activities of the next week will be determined by the software fixes, and its proper verification.

Mike says Bug 1 is well understood and the fix attainable with a patch. He also says that the fix for bug 2 is pretty straight-forward. He plans to patch version 3.707 to create v. 3.708 instead of recompiling. Bug 2 affects 3 types of packets and thus is isolated to a few words within v 3.707. (x words for the fixes, 1 word for version number, 1 word checksum). However, since this bug also exist in v. 3.600, patches to fix this bug for 3.600 must also be delivered.

NGIMS engineers feel much more comfortable with "patches" to the software versus outright recompiles.

The next chance that we will have to upload the new software and tables and run the Baseline is Dec 27th or 28th. After Mike delivers the software, we will load the same software onto the Brassboard here at APL (yes, I have it) to synch the databases and test it. We have not tested the table upload and flight software upload capability from the spacecraft and will have to do so prior to running the Baseline Jan 2nd.

For anyone who is interested, the schedule shows the following tests:
EMC - Jan 8-9th 2002
Vibration - Jan 17-21st 2002
Acoustics - February 1st 2002
Thermal Vacuum - March 7-8th 2002

The Baseline will be run after the following tests:
Vibration 
Acoustics
Thermal Vacuum
Jan 2nd.