VENUS EXPRESS / ASPERA-4 High Level data

Background

The Venus Express spacecraft is the European Space Agency (ESA) science mission visited to Venus. The Analyzer of Space Plasmas and Energetic Atoms (ASPERA-4) instrument was one of the scientific instruments on Venus Express, measuring space plasma and energetic neutral atoms (ENAs) around Venus.

Here we release the high-level data that was produced by the Principle Investigater team. The high-level data contains the differential flux and the moment of the ion and electron.

The instrument characteristics and the working principal was descrived in Barabash et al., 2006. The scientific outcome from ASPERA-4 was summarized in Futaana et al., 2017.

Data

IMA high level data

ELS high level data

Archiving Report

Data use condition

Any works, e.g., publications, presentations, etc., using the high-level data should include the following acknowledgement or equivalent.

The high-level data of ASPERA-4 on Venus Express was produced by Swedish Institute of Space Physics (IRF), co-funded by the Swedish National Space Agency (Dnr 79/19). We acknowledge all the efforts at IRF, led by the Principle Invetigator Yoshifumi Futaana.

The published articles shall be sent to the ASPERA-4 PI: Yoshifumi Futaana (futaana at irf dot se).

Known issues

  • Any automatic processing algorithms to produce high level data contain unknown features in the raw data, as well as unknown instrument features. Some of the known features could not be fully processed, which may lead serious impact on your scientific research. Therefore, the Swedish Institute of Space Physics and the ASPERA-4 team highly recommend carefully validating the high-level data before use. The ways of validation include
    1. Validate the data via assessing the raw data archived in PSA
    2. Validate the data via comparison with already published, trustable works
    3. Consult to the PI team (see Contact information below)
  • Particularly, the solar wind proton density values are known to be underestimated because the instrument (ASPERA-4/IMA) was not designed to monitor the solar wind. The IMA instrument is for mass analyzer of the Venus-originated ions.
  • We are working on the ESA/PSA team to publish the high-level data into the long-term PSA archive.

    Contact information

    The Principal Investigator of ASPERA-4: Dr. Yoshifumi Futaana (Swedish Institute of Space Physics), futaana at irf dot se.

    Acknowledgement

    We acknowledge all the efforts done by ESA and relevant countries, institutes, companies, for all the relevant activiteis. The raw data is archived at the Planetary Science Archive (PSA) at ESA.

    The ASPERA-4 instrument was developed and operated by an initiative of the Swedish Institute of Space Physics (IRF), Kiruna, Sweden, with 15 institutions from 14 countries.

    This high-level data product was produced with a funding by Rymdstyrelsen (the Swedish National Space Agency) under the grant Dr. 79/19.