New Horizons: Post-Launch Checkout Linear Etalon Imaging Spectral Array (LEISA) Raw Data

Status: Archived

This data set contains raw flight data taken by the New Horizons Linear Etalon Imaging Spectral Array (LEISA), an infrared spectral imager, leading up to and including the post-launch checkout. The data were collected from 19 Jan 2006 through 31 Dec 2006.

The entire data set including catalogs, data, documents, indices, and supporting files can be downloaded here:

• nhlale_1001.tgz (388 MB gzipped tar file) [MD5 checksum for the gzipped tar file]

An overview of the volume contents is provided in the aareadme.txt file.

Catalog Files

Catalog files contain the overview information and parameters used in loading the PDS central catalog, specifically, or for developing other interfaces to the data outside of PDS. The information they contain, particularly in their descriptive text fields, should be clear, complete, and understandable to a research user who is not necessarily a mission or instrument specialist.

These files are located in the catalog/ directory. The directory contents are described by the catinfo.txt file.

• New Horizons mission file
• New Horizons Spacecraft instrument host file
• LEISA instrument file
• Data Set description file
• Target catalog files contain very brief definitions of the various TARGET_NAME values found in the PDS labels for the data:
  • Calibration
• References file
• Personnel file

Documentation Files

In addition to the small text files located throughout the volume to describe directory contents, some specific documents are provided to assist with understanding the data and processing involved. These files are located in the document/ directory. The directory contents are described by the docinfo.txt file.

Additional explanatory material about the observations has been provided in several separate documents:

• The Ralph instrument is described by this paper published in Space Science Reviews: (ASCII and graphics, PDF, MS Word, PDS label).
• The Ralph Instrument SPICE Kernel describes the field of view for the 8 detectors in the RALPH instrument, one of which is LEISA: (ASCII).
• The Ralph Geometric Distortion and Boresights Document details the geometric distortion and boresight offsets for the LEISA instrument: (ASCII, PDF, MS Word, PDS label).
• The SOC-to-Instrument Pipeline Interface Control Document specifies the interfaces between the New Horizons Science Operations Center (SOC) and the instrument pipeline, which processes raw and reduced data: (ASCII and graphics, PDF, MS Word, PDS label).
• The New Horizons Payload is described by this paper published in Space Science Reviews: (ASCII and graphics, PDF, MS Word, PDS label).
• The New Horizons Field of View Document contains an illustration of the relative sizes and alignments of the fields of view of the remote sensing instruments on New Horizons: (PNG, PDS label).
• The New Horizons Mission Elapsed Time (MET) to UTC conversion: (ASCII table, PDS label).
• The New Horizons Trajectory: (ASCII table, PDS label).
• The New Horizons Quaternion Description: (ASCII, PDS label).

• The samples/ directory provides files that have, in ASCII form, a subset of the contents of a sampling of products in the data/ directory. A generalized PDS label for the ASCII samples is included. The sampinfo.txt file describes the contents of this directory.

Calibration Files

The calib/ directory contains calibration files for these observations. The types of files available and date ranges for which they apply are described in the calinfo.txt file.

Data Files

The data/ are FITS files with multiple extensions including images and a binary housekeeping table. Each data file has a detached PDS label (*.lbl). Data are grouped into subdirectories according to MET. The data format is described in the SOC-to-Instrument Pipeline Interface Control Document.

Index Files

The index/ directory contains the required PDS index of the files in the data directory, as well as the checksum file. The indxinfo.txt describes the directory contents:

• index.tab is a CSV table that identifies the location of each data file in this data set (PDS label).
• checksum.tab is a flat table of MD5 checksums for each file in the official archive volume except for itself and its PDS label.