MSP31.2

The long eclipse OFF period for C1, C3, C4 is from 14 August to 24 August with an additional long eclipse for C3 and C4 on 26 August, and for C2 the long OFF period is from 16 August to 26 August see the jsoc website for more details (​http://www.jsoc.rl.ac.uk/msp). The first two planning periods will have five orbits, with one orbit in each planning period being completely empty because all the satellites are OFF.

There is a sharp transition from Northern cusp crossings to Southern cusp crossings in the MSP segment. There are neutral sheet crossings and the SOWG presentation lists the available ones (10/08/14 - Full Moon 18:09, 28/08/14, 02/09/14, 09/09/14 (Full Moon - 01:38), 18/09/14, 03/10/14). There are possible conjunctions with ARTEMIS at Full Moon, and possible coordination with THEMIS and SWARM (NM1 mode used for SWARM).

The template Bryant plots for the periods are attached, and also on the jsoc website.

The draft for MSP31.2 is very full, and some BM1 sessions may need to be cut. There is a mixture of neutral sheet, some repeats of Retino, some substorm current wedge requests, a few magnetopause crossings, and a few Polar Cap sessions and ring current. The deadline for comments has been extended to Close of Business on 23 June.

As can be seen from the attached D0 (no-data-taking) pdf some very long D0 periods were added for orbits 2206 and 2207, to balance the long BM1 sessions (ESOC have been warned about this). The eclipse OFF periods on C1, C3, and C4 have been updated, to simplify the planning, since so significant events occur in the intervening ON-period. See the MSP web page for details.

There are manoeuvres 15 October, 23/24 October, 29 October, 4 November, 13/14 November and 20 November. ESOC requires WEC to be OFF during manoeuvres and additionally EDI, FGM, and RAPID on C2 to be OFF during manoeuvres. The detailed times are given on the JSOC MSP web page (​http://www.jsoc.rl.ac.uk/msp). This meant that the BM1 sessions had to be checked from mid-October to the end of the MSP since the perigee times had changed, as well as some perigees becoming unavailable due to the manoeuvre OFF periods (the start margin for C2 is 6 hours). An orbit-by-orbit list of activities has been attached, showing the changes.