STATUS/ACCOMPLISHMENTS
The SDO Project is preparing for next weeks Initial Confirmation Readiness 
Review to be conducted by the Goddard PMC.  To that end, we were audited 
this week by Code 300's System Management Support Office for compliance 
with NPD 7120.5B, NASA Program and Project Management Processes and 
Requirements.

The Systems team continued their evaluation of the Instrument Concept Study 
Reports and presented preliminary findings to the Project in preparation 
for the upcoming ICR. In addition, the initial disposition of the SDO SCR 
RFAs prior to submission to the IRT and GSFC review teams was completed. As 
part of the weekly SDO systems team meeting, the propulsion team presented 
the new thruster reorientation approach that they have been investigating 
since the SDO SCR. This new concept, which removes the thrusters from the 
top plane of the Observatory and leaves only a set of thrusters on the 
bottom of the Observatory, was unanimously accepted by the team as the new 
baseline. The Prop team is continuing to investigate other thruster options 
to address single fault tolerance and reliability concerns. The systems 
team also met to further discuss and define the power distribution approach 
for the Observatory electrical architecture and a draft power distribution 
matrix was generated and distributed to the team for review. Finally, a 
number of design and development issues continue to be addressed as part of 
the preliminary design process. These include the ongoing investigation of 
the ATMEL 1355 radiation hardness issue and preparations for upcoming 
radiation testing, coordination of a multi disciplinary informal peer 
review of the SHARPP electronics boxes to address concerns about various 
accommodation and design implementation issues, Omni antenna placement, SDN 
protoype board development and SDN S/W to H/W ICD development and 
documentation, and a dry run of the HGA system peer review.

The Ground System team delivered the first of eight functionally readied 
ASIST workstations to the Project's Attitude Control System (ACS) group. 
Four more have been readied and are awaiting delivery to the Flight 
Software Group (2) and the Simulators Group (2). Three more ASIST 
workstations are being configured and tested for a 4-8Aug03 delivery- two 
more units going to Flight Software, and the last one held in the ground 
system integration lab as a redundant system should any group have a 
failure. The other significant event involved a French 
company,  "IN-SNEC",  who sponsored an SDO demonstration of their High Data 
Rate Receiver (HDRR) with Viterbi decoder on 28-29Jul03. An actual 
Intermediate Frequency of 720MHz was used (with modulation) and their unit 
successfully demonstrated the handling of data at 300Msps (mega 
symbols/sec). This unit is being marketed as a COTS product and could 
significantly reduce both ground system development costs and design time 
should it be proven worthy after additional testing.

In the area of Education and Public Outreach, we are making final 
preparations for the first SDO Dynamic Sun Workshops. The purpose is to 
provide training for project personnel to provide them with the tools 
needed for successful and rewarding outreach experiences.  SDO has 
officially reported their E/PO initiatives for FY03 in NASA's Education 
Division Computer Aided Tracking System (EDCATS). This will be the first 
year SDO will be represented in the Office of Space Science Education and 
Outreach Annual Report.

Thanks,

Rob Lilly
SDO Deputy Project Manager (Code 464)
301-286-7752



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