Marc Costa Sitjà
European Space Agency/ESAC (ESA SPICE Service) SPICE for ESA Planetary Missions
Introduction
The ESA SPICE Service (ESS) leads the SPICE operations for ESA Science and Exploration SPICE is an information system that uses ancillary data to missions. The group is responsible for the generation, development, maintenance and archive of the provide Solar System geometry information to scientists SPICE Kernel Datasets for the ESA Planetary Missions (ExoMars 2016, Mars Express, Rosetta, and engineers for planetary missions in order to plan and BepiColombo, JUICE, Venus Express and Solar Orbiter). analyze scientific observations from space-born instruments. SPICE was originally developed ESS develops and operates software to convert orbit, attitude, telemetry and spacecraft clock and maintained by the Navigation and Ancillary Information correlation data into the corresponding SPICE formats. ESS also provides consultancy and support to Facility (NAIF) team of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory the Science Ground Segments and the Science Community of the planetary missions for SPICE and (NASA). ancillary data management. SPICE Kernel Datasets ESA SPICE Operational The main purpose of the ESS for the Planetary Science Community is to provide a complete, consistent, high-quality, Service Home: Kernel Datasets: validated and up-to-date SPICE Kernel Dataset for the given mission in order to be able to use SPICE with it.
Available, SPICE Kernels Datasets: Releases and support to the community is provided Legacy Operations Study
ESA NAIF PSA Depending on the phase in which the mission is the SPICE Kernels will be in a different state: Mission Status FTP Mirror Archive (1)Studies (pre-operational): JUICE, BepiColombo, ExoMars RSP (and Solar Orbiter although ESS interfaces with the ExoMars2016 PDS4 Operational Science Operations Center and not the community). These kernel datasets are characterized for being highly dynamic Mars Express PDS3 Operational with changes in Instrument and S/C frames definitions. Usually different study cases for different consolidated Rosetta PDS3 Legacy trajectories provided by Mission Analysis and with default and or study S/C Orientations are generated by the ESS. Venus Express PDS3 Legacy (2)Operational: Mars Express, ExoMars 2016. These kernel datasets are updated with kernels generated from the BepiColombo PDS4 Studies periodical trajectory and orientation updates and from the relevant information obtained from housekeeping telemetry. JUICE PDS4 Studies Some updates on Instrument and S/C models might occur responding to operational demands. SolarOrbiter* Studies (3)Legacy (post-operations): Rosetta, Venus Express: This ought to be final peer-reviewed and consolidated datasets. SMART-1 Legacy This process is currently on-going for both missions. Unfortunately no resources are available for Giotto or Huygens. Chandrayaan-1 Legacy Huygens Legacy It is also important to distinguish in between SPICE Kernel Datasets published in the ESA FTP (Study and Operational) Giotto Legacy and the peer-reviewed and PSA-PDS compliant Archived Kernels. See table on the right.
Kernel Production at ESA Other Services
The key element of using SPICE –after the Toolkit libraries- is data. Data are The ESS provides Auxiliary Data services to the SGSs and to the Science kernels. ESS is focused on producing high-quality kernels. How? The focus is Community. Seminars are organised when needed and the ESS organises with now put on the meta-kernels –a.k.a. Furnsh Kernels- (MK), these kernels NAIF a SPICE Training Session in a biyearly basis. Amongst those services we provide a list of the required kernels to run a certain mission scenario. ESS highlight two of them –provided by NAIF-: discourages the user to venture out on trying to find the appropriate CK, SPK, FK etc. for their application. Instead the ESS produces a set of MKs for the missions WebGeocalc (WGC) is a web-based graphical user interface to SPICE. Many which contain all the information necessary for a well defined mission scenario. observation geometry computations available in SPICE through a standard web browser. The ESS offers an instance of WebGeocalc for the operational, studies Kernel datasets are released (e.g. MEX_KERNELS_V210) in a regular basis and archived scenarios of the supported missions. which feature updates in “configuration” kernels (FK, IK, PCK, LSK) and for SPICE-enhanced Cosmographia is an interactive tool; 3D visualization of S/C missions in operations this also includes periodical updates to ensure that the trajectory, orientation and instrument field-of-views and footprints. latest data is available with the automatic generation of ”input” kernels (SPK, CK, SCLK) (e.g. MEX_KERNELS_V210_20170620_001). Both releases are always accompanied by MKs. The second one will contain the same S/C and Instrument models as the MEX_KERNELS_V210 release but will contain the latest available trajectory, orientation and time correlation data.
“Configuration kernels” are developed by ESS and are reviewed and iterated with the SGS and with the Instrument Teams when need be during the whole duration of the mission. ”Input kernels” are generated with the ESS SPICE Operational pipeline and its source data is provided by the Flight Dynamics team in terms of OEMs, AEMs and Housekeeping Telemetry data.
References Contact Info European Space Astronomy Centre (ESAC) Marc Costa Sitjà [1] ESA SPICE Service Home Page: http://spice.esac.esa.int Camino Bajo del Castillo s/n [2] NAIF Home Page: https://naif.jpl.nasa.gov [email protected] Urb. Villafranca del Castillo [3] Acton C. (1996), Space Sci., 44, 65-70 Phone: +34 91 8131457 28692 Villanueva de la Cañada Madrid, Spain