NSSDCA ID: PSPG-00834
Availability: Archived at NSSDC, accessible from elsewhere
This description was generated automatically using input from the Planetary Data System.
Data Set Overview ================= This data set contains data that will help determine the mineralogy of Martian rocks and soils, determine the thermophysical properties of soil patches, and determine the temperature profile, dust opacity, water-ice opacity, and water vapor abundance in the lower boundary layer of the Martian atmosphere. The Mini-TES calibrated radiance is the primary data product for the MER mission. These data will be converted to effective emissivity and surface temperature by fitting a Planck blackbody function to the calibrated spectrum. The emissivity spectra will be converted to mineral abundance using a linear deconvolution model and a matrix of mineral spectra from the ASU Mineral Library and other sources. The derived surface temperature will be used to produce thermal inertia images via a thermal model, using data from multiple times of day where possible. Attempts will be made to coordinate these diurnal observations with the times of TES or THEMIS direct overflights, providing simultaneous temperature observations that can be extended to broader regions surrounding the rovers. The Mini-TES will also view upward at angles up to 30 degrees above the horizon to provide high-resolution temperature profiles of the Martian boundary layer. This upward-viewing mode will yield highresolution temperature profiles through the bottom few km of the atmosphere using temperatures retrieved from the wings of the 15-mm CO2 band. This lowest region of the atmosphere has been difficult to measure on Mars because of the nature of the weighting functions as seen from orbit, and because of the difficulty of determining surface contributions to radiance. Atmospheric water abundance will be obtained by vertical and horizontal viewing of rotational H2O lines. Separate measurements of water near the ground will be obtained by viewing distant surface obstacles. The broad water-ice feature centered near 800 cm^-1 will allow monitoring of ground ice hazes. Together, these measurements will illuminate the behavior of water in lower atmosphere and of water transport between the atmosphere and surface. Atmospheric dust abundance will be obtained using the redundant temperature information in both sides of the 15 mm CO2 band, together with differential absorption across the dust band in that region. Processing ========== The Mini-TES data products comply with NASA processing level standards. All Mini-TES products are spectral image QUBEs derived from the previous level product. The Mini-TES EDRs will be generated by JPLs Multi-mission Image Processing Laboratory (MIPL) under the OPGS at JPL using the telemetry processing software 'mtes2edr' provided by ASU. The EDRs produced will contain raw, uncalibrated data reconstructed from telemetry data products and formatted according to the EDR format defined in this SIS. Meta-data acquired from the telemetry data headers and a metadata database will be used to populate the PDS label. There will not be multiple versions of Mini-TES EDR data products. Initial processing will generate an EDR data product and pad any missing data with the value of CORE_NULL. Missing packets will be identified and reported for retransmission as 'partial data sets'. The EDR data product will be placed into the OSS for distribution. When all retransmitted 'partial datasets' have been received on the ground, the EDR file will be regenerated since the additional data can not be incorporated into an existing file. The original EDR will be overwritten with a new EDR, generated from both the original and retransmitted packets; this new EDR data product will replace the old file in the OSS for distribution. RDRs, BTRs, and EMRs will be produced in succession by the Mini-TES Team and placed into the OSS for distribution. If a data product needs to be regenerated for any reason, the original version will be overwritten with the new version. The new version may have a version number revision in the file name and will contain updates to keyword values and History objects within the header. Data ==== Each Mini-TES data product consists of a single file of header objects attached to a spectral cube. There are 4 fundamental parts of a data product: 1) an attached PDS label in ASCII format, composed of keyword-value pairs 2) a History object, describing the processing history that the data product has gone through; this ASCII object is a set of ODL statements, similar to the PDS keyword-value pairs 3) a table of binary, fixed-length records (available in EDRs only); table records are the internal calibration spectra and their associated telemetry values 4) a spectral cube, containing either interferogram data or radiance spectra and organized by azimuth and elevation with housekeeping and telemetry values attached as suffix backplanes The size of a data product will vary from sequence to sequence depending upon the size of the image commanded and the processing level completed. The average expected size of the data in an EDR from a 2-hour panoramic scan will be approximately 1.7MB. Software ======== ASU has provided telemetry processing software, mtes2edr, which generates Mini-TES EDR cubes from the raw packet data. The data stream must include a proper Instrument Data Product Header (IDPH), otherwise processing with be aborted. When executed, the software 1) will discard partial records and records with suspicious lengths. 2) will grid the data based on received azimuth and elevation data and the expected image dimensions. 3) will pad the data grid with CORE_NULL (as defined in the cube header) to prevent the grid from developing non-uniform cubic dimensions; the backplane values associated with the padded data are set to zero. 4) will fill the various header fields in the label by using NAIFkernels, when available. Media/Format ============ The data set will initially be delivered and kept online. Upon Mission completion, the Mini-TES EDRs will be delivered to PDS on DVD.
These data are available on-line from the Planetary Data System (PDS) at:
http://pds-geosciences.wustl.edu/mer/mer2-m-mtes-2-edr-v1/mer2mt_0xxx/
Questions and comments about this data collection can be directed to: Dr. David R. Williams
Name | Role | Original Affiliation | |
---|---|---|---|
Dr. Steven W. Squyres | Data Provider | Cornell University | sws6@cornell.edu |
Prof. Philip R. Christensen | General Contact | Arizona State University | phil@elspeth.la.asu.edu |