Heliospheric Data Newly E-Accessible Through Early 2002

By John Cooper

The following table lists coverage dates for new components of all heliospheric data sets made newly accessible, or updated, since July 1, 2001 on NSSDC's on-line data systems. The two main systems now supporting these data are the NSDC Anonymous FTP site on node NSSDCFTP and the Coordinated Data Analysis Web (CDAWeb). NSSDCFTP provides access to spacecraft data sets from multiple disciplines largely in ASCII but also in other formats such as PC (Intel 32-bit) binary, Flexible Image Transport System (FITS), and NCSA's Hierarchical Data Format (HDF). CDAWeb uses NSSDC's Common Data Format (CDF) to support user access to magnetospheric and interplanetary space physics data in the form of dynamically generated plots, ASCII listing, and various binary formats including CDF. Hourly field and plasma data are also periodically updated on COHOWeb.

The Advanced Composition Explorer (ACE) data sets are routinely acquired either in HDF or CDF formats from Caltech's ACE Science Center, which also distributes HDF and derived ASCII data on-line. In addition, NSSDC creates a plasma-field-merged 4-min ACE dataset. The Ulysses SEDR ephemeris data set is received from the Ulysses Project at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) on monthly CD's as part of Level 1 experiment data distribution to Ulysses experiment teams. Solar wind (SWOOPS) and radio & plasma wave (URAP) data are ingested directly via regular FTP transfers from staging sites of the SWOOPS and URAP teams. The Voyager 48-second magnetic field data sets were originally on NDADS and were migrated to NSSDCFTP. Voyager Cosmic Ray Experiment (CRS) data are acquired on a yearly basis from the CRS team's data processing group here at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center.

In most cases the full data sets corresponding to those below extend throughout the full mission of each spacecraft, but there are some exceptions for various reasons. Ulysses URAP data taken prior to July 1, 1999 were originally on NDADS and have not yet been migrated to NSSDCFTP. Completion of migration for these and all other NDADS data sets is planned for later this year. Voyager interplanetary magnetic field data from 1990 onward have not yet been submitted for archiving in any form to NSSDC due to processing problems reported by the experiment team. Lastly, archival quality (Level 2 and higher) data sets are produced and submitted to NSSDC at slower rates than key parameter browse data. Users needing access to the most recent mission data should consult with experiment team members and visit team or mission web sites such as that for the ACE Science Center and the ESA Archive for Ulysses Data (EAUD). These sites can be reached via links from NSSDC's mission pages and URL's are given below.

Terminology

NSSDCFTP - NSSDC Anonymous FTP site for spacecraft, model, and other on-line data {ftp://nssdcftp.gsfc.nasa.gov/}
CDAWeb - Coordinated Data Analysis Web site {http://cdaweb.gsfc.nasa.gov/}
SPyCAT/NDADS - Space Physics Catalog / NASA Data Archive and Distribution Service (no longer in service)
ACE Science Center - located at {http://www.srl.caltech.edu/ACE/ASC/}
ESA Archive for Ulysses Data (EAUD) {http://helio.estec.esa.nl/ulysses/archive/}
UDS - Ulysses Data System formats for coordinated mission data analysis also used by the EAUD
KP - Key Parameter data set used only for browse surveys (non-citable)
L1 - Level 1 data set in experiment units with ephemeris
L2 - Level 2 data set in scientific units
ASC - ASCII data table format
CDF - Common Data Format defined by NSSDC {http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/cdf/cdf_home.html}
HDF - Hierarchical Data Format defined by NCSA {http://hdf.ncsa.uiuc.edu/}
PCBIN - Intel 32-bit binary format
PS - Postscript graphics format
SEDR - Supplementary Experimenter Data Record for spacecraft ephemeris data
RAR - Ulysses URAP Radio Astronomy Receiver
Summary - Ulysses URAP daily summary plot
DynSpec - Ulysses URAP dynamic spectrogram