“When the data is received on the ground it is raw data, just ones and zeros,” says Javier Rodríguez-Pacheco, University of Alcalá, and the Principal Investigator of EPD. The effort requires dedicated hands-on commitment from all instrument teams to transform the raw data into calibrated products for scientific analysis. This orchestra is directed by ESA’s Solar Orbiter archive scientist Pedro Osuna in concert with the ESAC Science Data Centre. ![]() “It’s a coordinated effort involving dozens of people from many different teams, many different countries, and all parties have to work together, like an orchestra, to make sure that everything is ready at the right time,” says Yannis. There, the data is archived at the ESAC Science Data Centre and made accessible to the public. Once the working instrument is understood, the teams process the data and send them to ESA’s European Space Astronomy Centre (ESAC), near Madrid. Thus, the data must be calibrated with the actual ‘in-orbit’ thermal behaviour of the spacecraft. For example, instrument readouts depend on the temperature of the detector, but often the thermometers are by necessity located at a certain distance away. Once the instruments are taking data, the mission enters a calibration phase in which a lot of work is put in by each instrument team to understand how their instrument is working in space, whether the data coming back is as expected, and which instrumental and spacecraft effects need to be corrected for. The teams themselves are composed of dozens of people, often in many different countries. The work begins long before launch, with the various instrument teams getting ready to receive and process their data. “To do this in COVID-19 times was very challenging,” says Yannis, “But we are ready to deliver the data to the scientific community according to the plan, so that they can do science with it.” ![]() That would be a fast turn-around at the best of times with the unprecedented challenges of the pandemic this year, it is a double achievement to hit the deadline. During this period, the instrument teams calibrate the data taken by Solar Orbiter from its ever-changing distance to the Sun. This means open to the whole world, not only to the teams who have built the instruments,” says Yannis Zouganelis, Solar Orbiter Deputy Project Scientist for ESA.īased on the successful approach taken by previous solar physics missions, it was decided that the time between the data being received on Earth and it being released to the world would be at most 90 days. “We want Solar Orbiter to be one of the most open space missions. Long before launch, however, it was agreed that Solar Orbiter would be different. In the case of many space missions, the first data release usually comes after six months or a year, to reward the teams that have built the instruments with an exclusive first look at the data.
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